As Fandom Pulse reports, it’s not just Marvel, DC Comics, and Diamond that are in an obvious death spiral. Webtoons, their obvious digital successor, has been in decline ever since going public in 2022:
The company lost approximately $153 million in Q4 2024, which is up from $33 million in Q4 2023, posting a full year loss of $214 million up from $135 million in 2023. The company blames a lot of the assets on one-time IPO-related costs and aggressive marketing to get more creators on the platform.
Users note in recent years, Webtoon seems to have gotten more desperate to try to monetize their site, which has created a worse user experience. There are ads above every Webtoon stack which promote “treasure hunts,” where users get coins to spend on the site by signing up for brand email lists and watching more ads.
While they had a “Fastpass” situation where users could read ahead on monetized webtoons to pay creators in advance of the rest of the public, now users don’t have to have coins but can watch ads to get it, and some now have discounted coin prices where readers watch 30 seconds of ads to increase ad revenue. On top of this, they’ve introduced tipping to the website, encouraging creators to get their readers to do so by having an incentive-based leaderboard to do so.
None of this has brought the site to profitability, though Reddit users have noticed the changes to the site not being positive and have posited that Webtoon is on its way down.
Meanwhile, competitor Arkhaven Comics has reached over 16 million views on its website, running without ads and quietly being built entirely on user support. With Webtoon’s functionality getting more difficult to use, the environment seems ripe for a competitor to take over as the leader in web comics
Arkhaven has been very quiet in the last year. That’s not a coincidence. When the environment is not ripe for advancement, it’s always best to harbor one’s resources and await the right moment to aggressively move forward. The time is not yet right, but there are some signs that before long, it will be.
In the meantime, we’re making sure that when everyone else is going down in flames, Arkhaven will be the one left standing. The recently-approved proof of the HYPERGAMOUSE VOL. 1 hardcover for the backers will make it clear how, while the market leaders are spiraling downward, we’re raising our game.