Those aren't exactly free-of-charge; the authors/artists just produce works for fun. We're talking about commercial works here.

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PayPal's pretty safe, and the service charges can be waived easily if you are from a primarily English-speaking country and choose to pay it as a private payment. The issue is mainly the fact that most Japanese artists/mangaka/authors don't know about payment methods such as PayPal, and even if they did, they're probably not allowed (by serialization contract) to accept private payments for licensed works.

Anyways, as I said, the closest you'll probably get is probably buying the original Japanese volumes and/or magazines (but mags spread the profit between the mangas, so it's only a maybe).

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There are several considerations. We have to point out that the company is providing a reading service exclusively. Supposing it'd be excellent with the releases at the same time as Japan.

I'd definitely say no if:
*I had to acquire a manga device or something of the sort.
*There is zero downloadable content.
*There are extra fees of any kind.

I'll suscribe in the case:

*I could buy the manga volumes later on at a fair price, like 5 USD. I don't mind if I have to buy 10+ units or wait a period of 6 months to 1 year with the subscription.
*No more third parts, mostly a mangaka organization (I guess they can't get rid of publishers, at least). It'd be good if scanlators are hired since most of them do understand what quality is.
*Earnings accordingly to the number of visits. Popular mangakas don't have to worry, and beginners stand a better chance.

At least, it'd be convenient for those who don't have much access around the world; I don't see much future with that in the countries of origin because they buy magazines and physical manga. I ignore if this already exists there.

Well, that would be an interesting topic for thought.

Jmanga does that, but it isn't a single publisher. It licenses across many different publishers to deliver English translations. I would pay for the service. It isn't a bad idea, it's actually nice for the modern digestion of manga.

For some reason, I don't like the idea of paying for online manga. I don't mind paying for hard copies of my favourite manga, though.

No...
Not that i don't want to pay to read manga online, but to few manga i'm interested in reading get translated.
I wouldn't pay 10$ just for 2-3 updates a month i'm interested in reading.

A no from me.

Pros
- Unlimited amount of manga.
- Can read it anywhere and mostly on anything.
- $10 is pretty cheap.

Cons
- There aren't enough licensed manga I'm interested in.
- Most online readers by e.g Jmanga are made in flash to counter downloading. But it's slow and annoying.
- Region locking is a given (Jmanga already has it) and therefor what I'm interested in may not be available where i live.
- Publishers wouldn't get along in one place for long and therefor ridiculous capitalistic cash grabbing drama occurs (happens with Spotify all the time).

However, if they made a software where you could read a manga at fullscreen with a black background that doesn't steal focus then I could reconsider it. But it would still be a no in the end.

Lol. I posed this question a while ago. Before Jmanga was well known.

I think I thought of this when I wanted to read an out of print manga and thought, "Do I want to try to find used volumes for a 20+ series?
But do I want to pay over $100+)for something I'd read once?
Well, the publisher should still have it on their computers..."

Jmanga charges $5/book or more, as does Vizmanga. Similar to a used book. But I can't resell the 'book' if I don't like it. Most times, i cant even download it. If it were closer to $1/book I'd consider it.

I'd support a Netflix model more. I just thought a 'one publisher' idea would make it easier to implement. But yeah, I'd like MORE. Then I'd be able to try books that I might not look at before.
I also want to support the authors, and the publishers who support them, but I'm not rich. A reasonable monthly fee would allow me to do both.


And by 'digital', I meant computers, tablets, etc.

Last edited by kayue at 3:37 pm, Mar 10 2013

I don't read that many series anymore, so I'd rather pay... $1 for each of the 4-6 series I keep up to date with, than have access to everything. Especially since the series I enjoy the most are nearly all from a different publisher.
Though, I'd still leave the option of choosing either a single series or the entire library (for a higher price) to the subscriber.

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Being the lazy person that I am, I'm not likely to accept anything long-term though.

You can buy more points at anytime.

Of course you can buy as many points as you want, if you have the money, that is. I'm saying that they're lacking a subscription service where you can read an unlimited amount of material for a fixed sum per month, or at least more than 5 volumes (i.e. without buying additional points).

I believe the best response to such a service is the bottom right panel of the following comic:
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20120305

Although I have no idea how it works, the webtoons on Naver/Daum are made by professional artists. They don't just produce "for fun".

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That fixed sum would have to be ten times more than your average subscription, otherwise it would be financial suicide. It's just not possible to have a dirt cheap "all you can eat" model for manga.

Heck, last I heard, even Crunchyroll barely breaks even.