Downloading

Can you really not download sets or individual pictures with a premium account?

Edit: Because the dialog has been so civil and engaging in this thread, I'm tweaking my original post to make it 30% less douchey.

Well, the problem is that with an option to download chapters one could subscribe for only one month, easily download all chapters, then end his subscription (and probably share the content on torrent sites). Once they figure out a way to avoid such an scenario, downloading could become an option...

My suggestions for solutions:
1. Give every subscriber an option to buy the download feature for an issue for a symbolic fee of 1 or 2 bucks per issue.
2. Make a platinum subscription for like 5 bucks more which includes a download option for the issues/chapters that were released in the months the subscription was active. Thus you are motivated to keep your subscription going and it gets more valuable with every month
3. Enable the download option for every subscriber that had a subscription for six/twelve months straight.

Right now there's some work being done on an offline reader (think Steam but for manga instead of games), but I believe that's still far down the pipeline.

Thanks for the replies so far. I actually expected more comments about how I should have already known this was the case and I'm glad that was not the reception. Realistically, the new paying subscriber stunned by Fakku's model compared to competitors, should be a voice worthy of hearing. It would be easier to just cancel and walk away.. maybe tell friends not to bother with this site, but I want to share thoughts because I want to see better things for this site.

I can fully respect the need to protect the artwork and that if set downloads were allowed, people could just rip off content and then leave. My concern here is that this exists as an issue for every website in this space. You can say that Fakku offers better quality content in it's unique corner of this space, and that would be fair - but Fakku does exist in a space.. and that is porn. It is no more lofty than that.

Do you think that websites that film actual people fakku'ing don't want to protect their goods? Yet, they understand that their subscribers want to download content so they allow it. Subscriber retention shouldn't be forced through subscriptions being the only way to experience the content. It should come naturally through continuously offering great content. People want to download the things they love and I do not think Spotify's or Netflix's models extends to porn.

If you offer a good service, people will stay subscribed. I would have been a new lifelong subscriber, but sadly canceled my sub within a day of purchasing. This is not ranting... more just sharing my disappointment because this content truly does seem better than what you can get other places.

I'm sure my feedback is being considered by nobody and will impact nothing, but I wanted to at least share before leaving.

I work at FAKKU, so it's not falling on deaf ears. If you want a full response I can give you one (here or through PM), but there's no point if you've already left.

I left the feedback hoping it would be considered so I definitely haven't run off yet. DMs or in this thread is fine.

I've already seen people ripping FAKKU's subscription chapters and distributing them on torrents, so it's not as if keeping the subscription service online only without any downloads would prevent piracy (unfortunately, when it comes to piracy, if there's a will, there's a way). I think moving towards having downloads for subscribers in some capacity would be a good move so that people can enjoy their subscription even without a stable internet connection. I'd be fine with a more expensive subscription type for downloading or any of the other suggestions I saw in this thread. Additionally, I think having limits on how many chapters or pages you could download per a certain stretch of time (i.e. per day, week, or month) could solve the possibility of people subscribing, downloading everything, and canceling their subscription (I call this unethical use of downloading "fapping and dashing"). You do have to consider that since manga is a lot smaller than videos, it would be easier to rip and store a good chunk of it than other porn (heck, even my 5-year-old phone could probably store decent quality rips of most or all of the subscription chapters, whereas I'd probably need hundreds of gigabytes if not terabytes to fully rip a porn video site).

I remember a time long ago when Jacob uploaded an offline reader in beta lol

Fakku's subscription has no direct competition, Jacob is the only one to make contract with Japanese Hmagazine publisher.
Fakku's books have only competition of ProjectH and some local publisher in few countries, which have worse quality than Fakku. (both physical and download)
So for paying for pirated content I can sarcastically congratulate you.


Main problem with videos is that uncompressed videos take HUGE amounts of space, realistically no service offers fully uncompressed video streaming online that's why you get download option, hosting uncompressed images is way cheaper and way easier to scrap, ie I probably wouldn't be able to scrap whole Bangbros site within month but I definitely can get all current Fakku magazines within few days . In both cases I can't realistically watch/read whole library within month but with Fakku I could wait to subscribe again year later and repeat the process, do you see the problem?

I feel that. That is why I hit the whole point about Fakku having it's corner of the space that no competitors occupy. I believe that for the people who realize this is the only place to get certain content, that knowledge could be impactful enough for them to tolerate a streaming only model. To my point about competing within a space though - Fakku is not the only place for awesome doujins and many other places are free (unfortunately). It's just acknowledging the landscape. Like.. Apple got record labels to go along with decoupling songs from albums because pirates had already made that decision for them. Apple was just offering a legal alternative where everyone benefits including them as the distributor. HBO didn't decide that people without cable subscriptions could get Game of Thrones, pirates did. HBO just had to play along by offering a legal alternative with HBO Go because the landscape demanded it. I know these aren't one to one comparisons. Rather, they are examples of companies observing the spaces and landscapes they are working within and adjusting to maximize sales. If Fakku wants to cater to the niche community who wants only the newest and best in only a streaming model, they have nailed it. As homie ditama says though, people will pirate things no matter what. So why not also try to attract and hold onto those people who won't tolerate a streaming only porn model? Side note - If you cringe when I call this porn, then that might be part of the problem. Perhaps Fakku is targeting far too niche an audience.. one that wouldn't just look at a Fakku doujin and think, "yep, porn".

Lookit.. I'm just disappointing that I can't download and I want Fakku to be in my lineup of favorite places one day. That's all.

Honestly, yes. I can see the reasons mentioned on this thread as well as others for why downloading is disabled. In the goal of educating a passerby why downloading is disabled, you and others on this thread have succeeded. If Fakku employees take my feedback a step further and have a serious dialog about a unique solutions to the lack of downloads, that would be pretty sick though.

I apologize for the late reply, but other stuff took up all of my time during the regular work week.

I think I should start off by putting the most common misconception to rest: this has nothing to do with piracy. If we were concerned about that, we wouldn't have DRM free downloads for all the content where we offer a download option (which is everything you can purchase). In this day and age, anything that can be digitized and shared will get pirated one way or another, and piracy prevention is not really ever a deciding factor on our end.

It all comes down to the fact that the magazines are available as a digital subscription service—which in this case is different from a physical subscription service. This might seem obvious, but I often see replies saying you get to keep physical media after your subscription runs out. If we had a physical magazine option, subscribing today would get you 3 magazine, but with our digital service you get access to over 40. A year from now, you'd still only get a handful issues sent to your mailbox, but over 90 with FAKKU's current model. Some digital services operate like a traditional paper-based subscription, but we offer access to a library with all of our back issues. Downloads make sense when you only have the most recent issues available on your site, but less so when it's an entire library.

It's already a good value product (subscribing is cheaper than buying the original Japanese magazines each month, digitally or physically), but we understand that some people don't always have access to a stable internet connection. This is something we will try to solve with the aforementioned offline reader, which unfortunately hasn't really moved past the proof-of-concept stage at this point. If you're stuck with an unreliable internet connection, it's hard for me to try and sell the service in its current form, and I won't attempt to do that. All I can say is that it's something we hope to rectify in the future.