Well, I thought I should throw my 2 cents here about what I think about the whole situation.
It's been a while since I've seen such turmoil in a community, and with this new movement coming from FAKKU, it's no surprise.
First off, I'd like to say congratulations on making FAKKU as successful as it is today. To see my "initial portal to the H-Manga world" from when I first saw this website 7 years ago (although only became a member 5 years ago) become what it is today is truly an amazing feat and if things like this could bring a tear to my eye, it would. It makes me wish I had gotten more involved with the community and the forums around here. Being so busy catching up on the latest H-Manga on the website, I'm sure lots of lurkers out there, myself included, glossed over the forums, without truly getting into the thick of the community. Although all I may have contributed to the community would have been being socially active, I still wish I had gotten more involved.
It's also nice to see that FAKKU is becoming a median for Japan's artists to be able to showcase their work in a legal manner. Even though it was a recent discovery on my end, I wasn't fully aware of how much of a negative light the west was being seen in the eyes of Japan's adult industry. It's good to see that particular situation being moved forward in the right direction.
That being said, the future of FAKKU seems so uncertain, that I'm at a loss for what I should expect of the outcome of FAKKU's new business model. Of course, I want this new movement to succeed and for FAKKU to become such a powerful H-Manga source, that people will flock to FAKKU to satisfy their H-Manga needs and in turn, strengthen the website to become even more of a powerhouse. You've already given so much as it is, that to not earn what you deserve would truly be a waste. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious how much negative backlash this movement has received, and with the massive loss of fans of FAKKU, the future seems cloudy.
For me, the new business model was a heavy blow. Not because of the paywall or the massive loss of content (although that still hit pretty hard). It was a heavy blow because I just never saw it coming. Don't worry, I'm very aware that there were many messages that relayed the information of the new movement that was about to hit FAKKU, and even though I knew those messages existed, it just felt so surreal that the free H-Manga that I was so used to reading up on all the time was about to be put behind a paywall. It's insane that I've taken for granted this whole situation for as long as I have. I wish I could have had the insight to figure out that stuff like this was never going to be free forever, and that a movement like this was eventually going to be necessary for FAKKU to continue to exist. Instead, the blow came so suddenly (In the sense that I decided to become ignorant of it) that the initial shock took me a couple days to get used to before I could even make this post.
So the question that stands is, is it worth it to subscribe to FAKKU? My loyalty to using FAKKU for the past 7 years says "YES!"..... but the current status of FAKKU's content leaves me with many doubts. One glaring problem that I'm currently having with this new system is that there is currently no way to get a solid preview of the content that we're subscribing for. A page or two here and there simply isn't enough. Due to my past (mostly terrible) experiences with products that I've subscribed/made monthly payments for, such as games, magazines, applications, and miscellaneous items/etc, I need a firm understanding of the type of content that I'm putting money into, which FAKKU's new system doesn't allow.
Another problem that I've also taken into consideration of this massive change, although I'm fully aware the reasons why the changes had to have been made, is the massive ratio between cut content and new content, and the ratio between new content and content I'd actually read. At FAKKU's current status, the content that I would receive from my subscription and the content I would want to read based on tags (since that's my only criteria I can go on) is average at best. I'll be putting my votes into the polls for the topics that exist about the type of content I would want to see from new publications, but the question becomes how long would we have to wait to see results? While I'm not expecting instant gratification, should we expect things to happen in weeks? Months? Hopefully not longer than that.
Another sort of matter I have with this whole change, although it's more of me asking FAKKU itself rather than a personal problem that I have, is what is FAKKU's plan/stance about the content that is currently circulating throughout other websites. As it stands now, every single book (digitally, of course) that has ever come out on FAKKU, as well as a decent amount of subscription content is already available for free on other websites. I just want to know how FAKKU feels about these particular situations/circumstances and if there's anything that can possibly be done about it at all. As you can probably already guess and as I have already mentioned above, I've taken a lot of this for granted, which is why I know that the content that FAKKU has for sale is already available elsewhere. Then again, this type of news is nothing new for anyone who reads H-Manga daily.
Another question I had for FAKKU is were they ready to deal with such a negative backlash from the community? I'm sure you guys were fully aware that this was going to happen, but did you project it was going to be this bad, or did this surpass or possibly fail to meet your expectations? Who knows, maybe you were prepared for this amount of an exodus of fans, or maybe not, but gaining some knowledge and insight as to how you plan on dealing with such a negative impact would put me, and possibly others, at ease, regardless if the news is good or bad. Just so that we can know that you guys are still willing to progress forward with this movement regardless of the results that this new change has brought.
With all that said, can I put a subscription down for FAKKU's new subscription system?
... Unfortunately, my current answer is no, but maybe not for long.
I wish I could support FAKKU in its new business model, but there are so many doubts running through my head, and there's not enough current content to satisfy my needs, that I can't confidently put my money on the line for this new bold and ambitious endeavor that FAKKU has gone towards. I truly hope that FAKKU becomes successful in their new goals and will I put a subscription down if things look promising in the next couple of months? You can bet your ass I will. I'll most likely still be visiting this website as much as I have before the change, regardless, to check to see how things are and hopefully things will be looking up in the near future.
Until then, good luck, and I wish nothing but the best for this new change in H-Manga history for the west.