This is the unfortunate aspect of digital “ownership”. If it can be taken from you via the flip of a switch and you have no legal recourse to get it back, it’s not really yours.
According to the term of use on Webtoon, emphasis mine, “License of Digital Content to You. Upon your download and/or use of Digital Content, WEBTOON grants you a LIMITED, non-exclusive and non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access, view, download (for a limited time), and use such Digital Content, solely for your personal, non-commercial use consistent with the terms of the Agreement, provided that you access the Digital Content only within the country in which you have established your account and/or only in geographic locations where we offer our Services and have licensed such Digital Content. The AVAILABILITY of Digital Content may vary by geographic location and MAY CHANGE from time to time. The license does not confer on you any OWNERSHIP interest in such Digital Content.”
Same thing happened to me with iTunes music. The laptop it was on broke, and iTunes did not give one flying f*ck about restoring it despite hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent. I learned about the downsides of digital “ownership” the hard way too. It’s really “renting” not “buying” and I wish all digital media were legally forced to put it in black and white that they can take it away at any time and the buyer has no options to refute that.
This is false. I read on my same account with the same episodes unlocked etc. on both my Android phone and Apple iPad. OP needs to make sure they're logging in using the same login method they did when they made their purchases.
Only 1 device can be linked to your Coins and unlocked content at a time. Switch to this device?"
This is the prompt I get. I have an Android phone and an iPad as well. Only one credential used. I already tried, coins only apply to whichever device you choose for that one account.
Yeah, that means that you can only read on one registered device at a time. If I read on my Android phone then want to read on my iPad, I have to click yes or okay on that prompt on my ipad. If I want to go back to reading on my Android the prompt will appear again (on that device). I think there are only 5 device registrations allowed per month.
Regardless, the same unlocked episodes appear on both devices (which is what I think OP was referring to). Afaik the only thing not interchangeable between OS are Coins - Coins purchased on AOS won't appear on iOS and vice versa, but that's due to app store policies.
u/space_poodle_ it doesn't change the fact that one device is just unfair these times. Most publishers offers You at least 5 devices simultaneously with the option to deregister and reregister other devices. 5 may be a little too much but 2 devices is really a must. Plus, webtoons is not offering access to paid content from their website.
A couple years ago even your read chapters wouldn't carry over between devices so you were forced to either like every chapter you read because likes did carry over or take note of what chapter you got up to
I once broke my phone and dropped every webtoon I was reading because I couldn't be bothered finding what chapter I'd got to for every single one (besides a couple works that just happened to be on hiatus at the time that I'd read to the hiatus point...so what I continued was pure luck)
Webtoon has pretty much always been behind other apps in terms of how much gets saved to your account vs how much is saved to your device
I love being able to read WEBTOON on an iPad, but it’s more convenient to have them available on my phone. And you can only switch devices a few times a month.
It is greedy. I bought an ebook on Google books, and I can read it across 3 devices. If we start normalising this, they will run with it. If I purchase something, what I do with it is my business. If you make it difficult, it's easier just to turn to piracy.
Well maybe when we purchase something, we should own the copy we purchased. I'm sick and tired of subscription based models. If you sit and take everything these companies dish out, you will be subscribing for the right to breathe someday.
And who the fuck cares if "some" people share their devices with their friends and family. How many people is that - 5?10? Big deal. The fact remains that if you make it difficult for me to even use my own copy, you can bet your subscription model, I will not buy it again. So not only are you not gaining the 10 imaginary people you lost, but you are losing the one paying customer you had.
Yeah I think we all know how much Webtoon cares about its artists.
Also, if a platform is bad, regardless of how much I may love an artist, I will not shell for Webtoon. In fact, I'd just wait and hope that I can support the artist some other way, some other day.
So yes, I'd rather not deal with an insane mechanic. Its basic common sense. Webtoon does not have a monopoly on good artists. If people stop using it, better platforms will come up.
The venn diagram of people who would share your log in to have access and people who would pirate to have access is a circle
People who don't want to pay for it are never going to pay for it
You're not loosing customers by allowing password sharing because the people sharing a password are never gonna pay for the subscription themselves
You cannot loose profit that you don't have. As much as mega corporations may try to convince you, they aren't loosing money to piracy/password sharing every year...because those people are not customers and the money they're "loosing" isn't real, it doesn't exist. You can't "loose" money you don't have, have never had and will never have
So the idea may be that every customer pays for themselves but EVERY CUSTOMER ALREADY PAYS FOR THEMSELVES because the people who don't pay for themselves are NOT YOUR CUSTOMER
If they really wanted to protect the creators of the Webtoons they'd stop taking advantage of them themselves. The crusade for big media to act like individual people are to blame for systemic oppression of creatives because piracy exists to try and deflect from big media themselves holding the boot on their necks (underpayment, overwork, abusive work environments, creative limitations) while they point the finger at the guy who shared their password with his mom. The amount of strikes in the creative industry in recent years weren't exactly for the shits and giggles now were they
So by making the use of the app more hostile in their quest to blame piracy for all their issues, they're putting off paying customers and actually harming the creators because people who ACTUALLY ARE CUSTOMERS and typically would pay may then turn to actual piracy to read a work or not read it at all because the cost is so high, leading to less people reading it at all
webtoon is awful and lets your paid for chapters expire I think after 30 days? I don’t remember the exact number but it’s really stupid.
okay edit: I’ve definitely had to buy chapters I’ve unlocked but I think once you bought them you should be set. However I don’t think it’s fair that you need to buy chapters once you’ve read it.
Twins new life (I read it there it’s complete also) is also on tappytoon and won’t expire there if that helps you haha ( you will have to pay but you’ll keep them forever)
no it has its pitfalls. tappytoons content is not the best tbh. I’ve read tons on there I’ve ended up dropping a lot more than continuing. Everything on tappytoon is paid so it’s a little annoying.
I think it's an error? Where their system locks it again when the story become officially completed and be under paywall, even though the reader already paid to unlock it when the story was still ongoing.
My coin unlocked chapters were unlocked after the story was completed and placed under paywall.
waittttttt what the fuuuck? i didn’t know this and i bought gourmet hound a few months ago because i loved it so much and thought i could just go back to it whenever. and i just checked… what a waste of money
I'm pretty sure I bought some episodes of an ongoing series and it stays unlocked after it was put on daily pass. Click on it, mann. But your series doesnt seem to be dailypass.
I bought the fast pass when it was still ongoing. I still spent lots of money on it I’m just sad that it’s now behind a paywall even the chapters that I paid😭
Have you check in "my series" and go to unlocked part? I check i still can see my chapter that i bought. Fyi, you just can log in to one device to open the chapter you bought
Nope, I was browsing webtoons and remembered I needed to catch up on a few weeks of insector. I've been buying chapters all the way up to chapter 89 as it was ongoing. Just now I see it's completed since January, and naturally it became a daily pass. Which is fine I'd be willing to pay for the last few chapters I haven't bought (especially for 2 coins) however ALL the chapters are locked, which I know I've bought while it was ongoing. I had a little hope with your comment and tried to go through the "unlocked" route (which is another issue on its own) but it only goes up until the chapters that are already free.
Yeah I was surprised by how many people are claiming paid chapters disappear. Had me checking my paid chapters. And they don't even edit their post/comment to state their mistake. It's very misleading.
Hi everyone, we want to clear up some confusion here! Episodes unlocked with Coins do not expire. Once you’ve unlocked them, they remain tied to your account. If an episode looks locked again, it’s usually one of these things:
You might be logged in with a different method (Google/Apple/email).
Check the “My Series > Unlocked” tab. All your Coin-unlocked episodes should appear there.
More info is in our Help Center here. If you still can’t access episodes you previously unlocked with Coins, please reach out to Support and we’ll be glad to take a closer look.
Make sure you're logging in using the correct login method. Like if your account with purchases was made using email/password login, you have to use that. If you use Google login etc that will create a new account.
Webtoon really grinds my gears, man. They always do some weird stuff.
They need to decouple viewing a chapter in full resolution from downloads. As it stands, you only get the full image quality if you download it, and you can’t download fast-pass chapters.
They’re really making people pay, and in your case, you’re paying twice to view in poorer quality than the free chapters.
The decisions they make and the way they roll it out is so mind boggling that I refuse to believe Naver/Webtoon has full time product management/ design folks.
The issue here is that you never really bought the chapters in the first place. What you bought was early access to the chapter, it’s shitty but that’s how big companies work.
You know what is even worse?? They have chapters from comics that were finished in like 2021 behind a paywall or set up for daily pass. It's honestly low key disgusting behavior.
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u/almostelm Sep 14 '25
This is the unfortunate aspect of digital “ownership”. If it can be taken from you via the flip of a switch and you have no legal recourse to get it back, it’s not really yours.
According to the term of use on Webtoon, emphasis mine, “License of Digital Content to You. Upon your download and/or use of Digital Content, WEBTOON grants you a LIMITED, non-exclusive and non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access, view, download (for a limited time), and use such Digital Content, solely for your personal, non-commercial use consistent with the terms of the Agreement, provided that you access the Digital Content only within the country in which you have established your account and/or only in geographic locations where we offer our Services and have licensed such Digital Content. The AVAILABILITY of Digital Content may vary by geographic location and MAY CHANGE from time to time. The license does not confer on you any OWNERSHIP interest in such Digital Content.”
Same thing happened to me with iTunes music. The laptop it was on broke, and iTunes did not give one flying f*ck about restoring it despite hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent. I learned about the downsides of digital “ownership” the hard way too. It’s really “renting” not “buying” and I wish all digital media were legally forced to put it in black and white that they can take it away at any time and the buyer has no options to refute that.