My Viki account renewed today and I’m sour. It’s now $99.99 a this year! That’s an increase of 46.3% from last year!

Here’s my Viki annual billing history, in USD:

2017 $34.99
2018 $49.99 (+$15 or +42.8%)
2019 $49.99
2020 $49.99
2021 $68.35 (+$18.36; +36.7%)
2022 $99.99 (+$31.64; +46.3%)

Is Viki trying to make up for lost subscriptions due to competition from the big streamers? Or are they finally paying their translators?

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    That’s weird. They don’t show any price changes on the website. Do you have the Standard or Plus plan?

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      VikiPass Plus. Made sense for a time because it includes access to Kocowa shows. These days, I really don’t care. I should’ve gone back to Standard.

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        It hasn’t been feeling right since Dramafever was bought and disbanded.

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        Did you have the Standard plan last year? The Plus plan has always cost me around $100.

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          I do have the Plus plan but I didn’t actively change anything before this renewal. Blargh—this feels like a dark user pattern. Did I somehow get tricked into this? I’ve barely watched Viki this year.

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          Me too.

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    I’m debating whether to renew. They haven’t picked up much I wanted to watch in the last year so it’s really only worth it if I have time to watch older dramas.

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    They are still asking for ‘volunteers’ for series. They ain’t paying translators, unfortunately.

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    OMG! And here I was debating getting a viki subscription… I don’t think it’s that expensive for in the UK, though?
    But I have a big problem with a company charging for work done by volunteers. I even wrote one of my uni projects about Viki hahaha

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      It is interesting. I have been a Viki subscriber since April, 2016 and not to go ‘ad hominem’ on Netflix but imo we get better subs from those Viki volunteers than we get from Netflix which as I have said before has the wherewithal to to pay for the UN translation service gratis.
      Not that all is fine at Viki. I have recently noticed an inconsistency (or deterioration if you will) in one area of the Viki ‘style’: translating profanity. I expect to see the f-bomb in Netflix subs but now I am seeing it in Viki subs.

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        Oh, I don’t mean that the quality is bad, I just think it’s a company getting something for nothing and charging others (the cheek!)
        In fact, I recently watched something on viki and remembered how much I love the live comments – and I think the watch parties look super fun. Those would be the main reasons for me ^^

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