Membership cancelled.
What a bad move.
From reddit:
They're increasing the cost of the epubs on their site to match the price on other sites. So, they'll be 799 coins instead of 699 coins (so effectively $7.99 instead of $6.99).
They're removing catch-up series. They won't be a thing any longer.
They're reducing the coin discounts on the existing memberships by 5 percentage points. So, the basic membership will give you no discounts on coins whatsoever, and the premium membership will give you a 10% discount instead of a 15% discount.
They're introducing a new "Reader's Membership" which is separate from the existing memberships which will include some number of their completed LN series (and no manga), and in some cases, it will include the first 3 or so volumes of on-going series as a way to preview the series. So, in a sense, they're creating a separate membership for catch-up series except that it will include some set of series all the time rather than rotating through series, and you'll lose the ability to completely catch up on any series without actually paying for epubs unless you wait until the entire series is out long enough to be added to their Reader's Membership catalog (and which series end up in that catalog is also dependent on their contracts with the Japanese publishers).
The cost for the Reader's Membership on its own will be $3.50 / month or $40 / year. It includes no discounts and does not allow you to read any on-going series beyond those where the first 3 volumes are made available as a preview. It sounds like in almost all cases, you'll be reading the pre-pub versions of the books (Sam said that they might update some series to the epub versions for the Reader's Membership), but this subscription is about reading completed series, not about getting pre-pubs as they become available.
The regular membership is being renamed to the "Club Membership". It stays at $4.95 / month or $54 / year, but since you're losing the 5% coin discount and losing the catch-ups, you're getting less value for the same money. Regular memberships will automatically be "upgraded" to the Club Membership.
The premium membership is being renamed to the "Premium Club Membership". It will increase by $1 a month (or $12 a year) to compensate for the $1 increase in the cost of the books. So, it will be $11.95 / month or $132 / year and give you 799 "free" coins a month instead of 699. So, you're paying more for less value. The number of books is the same, but the coin discount is 10% instead of 15%, and you're losing the catch-ups.
Your current premium membership will not be automatically upgraded. It will continue to get 699 coins a month (even after the price of the books increases), and the discount will still be reduced to 10%. You can upgrade to the new membership without waiting for your current membership to renew.
If you wish to combine the Reader's Membership with the Club Membership, you can do so by getting the "Reader's Club Membership," which will cost $7.95 / month or $90 / year, saving you $0.50 / month or $4 / year. It also gives you back the 5% discount on coins that the Club Membership is losing.
If you wish to combine the Reader's Membership with the Premium Club Membership, you can do so by getting the "Premium Reader's Membership," which will cost $14.95 / month or $170 / year, saving you $0.50 / month or $2 / year. It also increases the discount on coins by 5 percentage points to return it to the 15% off which the current Premium Membership has.
So, in essence, they're increasing the cost of their books by $1, changing the nature of catch-ups so that they're primarily just completed series, charging an additional membership fee for access to that catalog, and reducing the discount on coins that you get unless you pay for both one of the "Club" memberships and the "Reader's" membership.
