Webnovel.com On Trial

An open letter from Bardic Planet on the crimes of Webnovel against writer and reader alike.

Dear Webnovel.com,

I hope this finds you well. Ideally wrapped around a brick and thrown straight through your window.

Long have been the nights spent scrolling through some of your finer works—Shadow Slave, Lord of the Mysteries, Reverend Insanity.

(Reverend Insanity is the most fitting of names. Not for the story—but for the rights agreement that surely came with it.)

I must congratulate you on your greatest discovery.

What discovery, you ask?

The philosopher’s stone, of course. How else could you so seamlessly transmute the brilliance of others into your IP?

These stories—these universes—are born in solitude, sculpted by hands most readers will never see. But where others create, you consume. Inside each story is a world of imagination. But like Galactus on his silver trail, you haven’t come to uplift those worlds—only to devour them.

I hope this is painfully clear:

You’re not a rock star.

And this?

This isn’t a fan letter.

This is a list of charges.

So tell me—how do you plead?

GUILTY.

The evidence is undeniable. It could no sooner be hidden than:

• Nemo from Marlin,
• honey from Pooh,
• or a protagonist’s harem from emotional neglect.

You had a great idea. You inspired passion spilled over page.

So where did it go wrong?

Why, as a creator, am I more sympathetic to the Pirates?

May the reader be my witness as I list the charges.

Count one:

You stand accused of promoting mediocrity on a massive scale.

Of sacrificing craft at the altar of a senseless algorithm.

Writing is a craft. Like any other, it takes patience. It takes precision. It takes time.

But time, to you, is a liability.

You reward volume over value.

Word count over wonder.

Noise over nuance.

And in doing so, you’ve taught an entire generation of writers to drown their talent in filler.

Your metrics demand it.

Count two:

For the predatory crime of overcharging and undervaluing, you are guilty.

You lock chapters behind paywalls—each one released only by coins guarded more jealously than gold in a miserly dragon’s lair.

Web novels often run for millions of words. Your algorithms demand no less. But for every chapter read, a toll must be paid.

By the halfway mark, the reader has remortgaged their house. By the end? Foreclosed. Auctioned off.

All for a story that might never be finished.

Is it any wonder that even the most honest of readers have taken to the high seas?

At this point, Webnovel is practically synonymous with piracy. And here’s the thing—I don’t blame them.

This isn’t a defence of the practice. It’s an explanation.

What else could possibly come from the system you’ve built?

You’ve turned passion into product.

Stories into toll roads.

Reading into a luxury.

And the worst part?

It didn’t have to be this way.

You could have still raked it in—hand over fist—in ways that didn’t cannibalise goodwill:

• A fair subscription model.
• A hosting licensing structure that let authors keep control.
• A shred of f*cking decency.
• A flicker of fidelity to the authors and readers who built your empire.

Instead, you chose the path of extraction, not creation.

Count three:

For the grand larceny of an author’s soul—taken for pennies on the pound—no sentence is too grave.

You came not with praise, but with contracts. Not with respect, but with terms of service. Not with partnership, but with perpetuity clauses.

You take ownership.

Not just of chapters, but of futures.

You claim their worlds. Their names. Their right to walk away.

In exchange for what?

For what?

A pittance, and a prayer—that’s what.

You dress it up in platform perks and visibility. But the truth? It’s a cage—lined with empty promises, locked with gilded keys.

You do not nourish creativity. You harvest it.

You do not elevate artists. You bind them.

You offer the tools of empire, and then brand the creator’s name with your seal.

And when they ask for freedom?

You remind them they signed it away.

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