[IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025

[Tremarl]

@kuali
Then the solution is even simpler

Keep the credit system, and have a cash in account as separate from the credit system. Why they won't do this and why they opted for a "Premium currency" is very clearly to drive sales and profits as they want to incentivize people to stock pile the premium currency. As people are much more likely to buy a premium currency in bulk with a discount, than they are to simply add a credit facility. Its a predatory practice, that has no real reason to exist beyond milking a customer base. Premium currencies are traditionally the preserve of scummy games, and yet here we are using them in a quite literal book shop.

Its misleading. I and many others are now short several features of the subscription that they originally paid for.

And if you want premium books or manga its even easier, have a normal check out page, and the credit act as a coupon redeeming for the equal value of a standard e-pub. Ta-da done, now you have the 1 book 1 credit system, and for more premium items it applies a discount value to whatever they want to set it at.

If you want a discount on purchasing books for certain membership then just add it as a standard store discount.

Multiple other online outlets manage to do all of this no problem.

But anyway, apart from my frustration I doubt anything will actually change, and we won't see anything for probably a years time after JNC does a financial review, and the water has settled to see the effects on the active subscriptions they have and whether its been profitable for them to rug pull their customer base.

[cfoley]

@AnimeMayhem
I agree with your conclusion that they are maintaining their silence on purpose. It’s actually why I made the post. I wanted to leave my feedback that this course is going to cost them at least one subscriber. Not a huge deal for them I'm sure, but I’d rather put it out there on the small chance it changes something.

On the point that we shouldn’t expect better, I vehemently disagree. Customer service and customer communications should not necessarily be the translators’ job, but they need to be someone’s job in a company.

As a small business owner that had to raise my own rates just this year, you’d better believe my company gave months’ of notice prior to the transition. And if a customer has a complaint, someone is guaranteed to be fielding it in some way, and promptly at that, even if it’s just to say they’re consulting management. If JNC doesn’t have staff with this skill then they need to hire some with their increased revenue from this price increase.

[hyper]

Two weeks have passed. Last week panel has come and go. Still no response and no attempt to make up for their (self-admitted) lack of communication in any way. Any trust I still have left is gone.

@jpwong said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:

but I guess from a discussion standpoint, would people have preferred that JNC kept the existing released volumes at the $6.99 price point back then but in exchange all new volumes would have been priced at $8.99/$9.99?

Yes. If that is the price for new books, charge it accordingly. I'll decide for myself if I still want to buy them. Why use old books to subsidize the new books, or vice versa?

And I highly doubt the math even works out. I don't believe increasing the price of the old volumes can make up for lower prices of the new releases going forward. I admit I have no clue about the actual data, but I am fairly sure the sales are front-heavy, like most entertainment products. The number of post-initial sales won't be able to cover the lost revenue from lower price on the early sales.

There is another reason to keep the old books at low price--to use them as "advertisement" for new releases. Same reason they heavily discount the first volume--to entice people to pick up the series.

The lack of advance notice is still the worst thing about this update, but retroactively raising the price of the old books is my close second (I don't use subscriptions, so I don't comment there). They destroyed a lot of consumer trust with seemingly minimum benefits for themselves.