Forum - View topicKorea's WEBTOON Entertainment In Midst of Labor Dispute
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primalmaximus
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Not surprising that Webtoon's having problems.
A large part of why Webtoon hasn't made a lot of money since going public is due to a couple of things. (1) Webtoon, especially the English version of the app, has heavily marketed itself and built the platform around the idea of being "Family Friendly". Which means they don't have any adult comics that could possibly encourage adults, who have discretional spending money, to "Whale" on the app. (2) Companies like Naver and Kaokao are far behind the times when it comes to releasing their series in the west. A lot of big name series, such as "Solo Leveling" only got popular due to scanlation groups. And when the Korean companies officially released those series in the west, they were always far behind the scanlation groups. Sometimes 100 chapters or more. (3) Because of the aforementioned contrast in quality and speed between the official releases and the scanlation/pirated releases, a lot of people still prefer to use the scanlation sites to read the manhwa being released. Especially considering the predatory monetization that Naver's Webtoon & Kaokao's Tapas have. (4) The people who are actually in the know about the state of the western manhwa industry are hesitant to invest because of how poorly Naver and Kaokao handle their western releases. Both companies frequently use the metrics from scanlation/piracy sites to determine what series to give official western releases. So that means they're, again, frequently behind the times when it comes to releasing series western audiences will enjoy. So they're hesitant to invest. (5) In addition to all of the things that would make people in the financial industry hesitant to invest in their companies, the consumers who buy the content are pissed at Naver and Kaokao because of how aggressively they go after scanlation sites and apps like Tachiyomi. Kaokao in particular is absolutely draconian, even going so far as to spy on various Discord channels to obtain the identies of various scanlation groups and app developers. And if the people who consume your entertainment product are pissed at you, then you're sales will suffer. In conclusion, investers are hesitant to invest in Webtoon because of how the two giants, Naver & Kaokao, have handled things in the past and are likely to handle them in the future. So Webtoon going public was doomed from the start. |
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