Introduction
My story may be similar to yours. An aspiring artist once hopeful for the future, only to realize this world is designed to take advantage of you in every way it can. Because of this ruthless environment, at an early age I realized you must change the world if you wish to improve your conditions, not the other way around. Which is why my mission is to build a platform where stories can prosper without the uncaring exploitation of publishing platform companies who profit off artists’ free labor.
How Platforms Exploit Creators
Why Platforms Exploit
Us artists have been conditioned to undervalue our labor. Because of this, companies have grown too comfortable profiting off what we produce practically for free, even though it is the artist who creates the works that makes these platforms profitable. They understand artists love what we do. That love is weaponized to offer your beloved works a home for readers around the world to enjoy. In exhange however, for you to happily give away your love and labor and be thankful for the opportunity of being “officially” published.
The Webtoon Problem
Webtoon does exactly that. With their wild west freemium coin model, the platform does offer to compensate creators, but not with income. Webtoon offers the unspoken promise of your story being exposed to their hundreds of millions of readers for the chance to be an original creator. This is largely a false promise.
In 2023 there were around 24 million creators on Webtoon owned platforms (Webtoon, Wattpad), yet only 13 thousand professional creators were paid an average of 48k USD a year. This isn’t taking into account these creators needed to pay for assistants, editors, colorists, background artists, lettering, and in the end they were left with even less than the original payment that wasn’t enough for them to survive to begin with.
The Exponential Revenue Nature of Webtoon
Make no mistake: 48k is the average, not the minimum. This average is skewed heavily towards creators who get compensated more. Around 500 creators make at least 100k USD from Webtoon, equating to 0.00002% of creators making a living income depsite the fact all 24 million contribute to Webtoon’s catalogue. Even with this the average is still skewed, as there are around 100 creators who are paid over 1 million USD. All of this means 99.9995% of creators who dedicated their time to produce content for Webtoon with the promise of viewership of the millions and the lottery of succeeding, get nothing.
The Model Built for Exploitation and Manipulation
There are a few creators able to obtain viewership. Assuming their works are of higher standard, the vast majority of them only get compensated with mere likes, comments, and the occasional one out of a thousand dedicated fan who donates on Patreon. This is a deplorable model for a platform or any profession. In no other industry are you expected to work hours on end for free. It guarantees the creator makes an unliveable wage and forced to have a day job in order to live and continue to produce works for their viewers/fans.
The problem lies with the readers as well, who have been conditioned to behave like cattle and expect comics to be free to consume with little effort. With no need for the reader to use income they earned for the stories they want to read. This not only demoralizes those who spend much of their time and labor creating stories with little in return, but also devalues the medium of comics from the readers perspective.
Note, this moral failure is not inherently the fault of the reader, but a consequence of the environment the reader consumes in. Readers themselves are exploited and belittled by the platforms. They are bombarded by invasive advertising and the addictive need to obtain phantom coins to read stories they’re invested in without feeling like they spent real money. This is no shock when these companies label their audience as “consumers”, because in their eyes, you are cattle who will consume anything with little pushback.
Creators are Not Saved By Ad Revenue
An artist making money from ad programs by, for example Webtoon, splitting the ad revenue 50/50 fairly is a counter-argument I unfortunately hear a lot. They speak as if ads are the answer for artists’ compensation of labor and viewers wallets. But this is not true. When looking at numbers reported by Webtoon creators who are enrolled in the ad revenue program (must have over 1000 subscribers and 40k views), they make on average 1-10 USD per 10k views. How is this a fair exchange? How is it proof of the creators merit of labor?
A Culture of Accepting Mediocrity
What scares me the most about this situation is not the fact platforms exploit the artist, no. It’s the fact said artists willingly accept, and sometimes are even happy with their exploitative environment, and celebrate any milestone they make. Posts celebrating reaching tens, hundreds, millions of viewership, yet the revenue doesn’t equate to the amount of exposure they gained. When they can only buy a cup of coffee for the week as their reward… it is disheartening to witness this manipulation in practice.
What we see is the results of years of creators being conditioned to enjoy the hustle culture these platforms promote, how you the artist are worth less than what you really are, how your proof of labor should be free. What is free has no value in this world, and is disposable content. Which reflects not only how these companies view you, but also what these platforms hope you produce, disposable content made for cattle to easily consume, not art.
Conclusion
The conclusion is unavoidable. An artist publishing on Webtoons, Tapas, MangaCreatorsPlus, NamiComi, or any platform with the freemium coin system which promise you viewership in return for hosting your work, are taking advantage of your passion. And they are willing to hide behind false promises and continue to manipulate, extract, and harvest you to the very end. This is the hard truth. Macaw House, however, is the anti-thesis to it all! This website will become a platform built by an artist, for artists, not by executives, for the executive.
Future Topics
There’s a lot of opinions I have on this industry, ideas for this website, for Macaw House. From worries of the future, theories of IP ownership, the platform stages, challenges, etc. These topics are all swimming in my head and I’d like to write them down, and will write down.
The next entry I believe should be about Macaw House itself, and go into detail of the stages, ideas, and plans for this website. This isn’t just a rant, critique, a journal, or even a website. Macaw House will be a platform for those who want change to finally see it, grasp it, and become part of it.