It can be said that at the moment Weverse is the largest communication platform for artists and fans. With a scale that includes most of the major artists and soon a series of SM artists merged into this platform, Weverse seems to have captured the entire K-pop market, far ahead of other competitors.

Recently, with an upgrade orientation, HYBE has come up with new content that will be brought in the latest version of Weverse. However, this won't be much of an issue as there are some new features that will be updated that will cost consumers a large fee to use, including basic features like subtitles for videos. Weverse Live.

This is making fans all over the world, especially foreign fans, angry, criticizing this new way of working Weverse:

Weverse is an app developed by Weverse Company in June 2019. The app was developed to provide a platform for K-pop artists to interact with fans "on a deeper level" compared to YouTube or Twitter, which emphasize the delivery of content through communication.

When the platform was founded, it seemed to be open only to HYBE artists including BTS and TXT. But after HYBE expanded its activities and collected many sub-labels, many artists joined the platform. Even later, when Weverse gradually developed to perfection and owned Vlive's features, there were many artists from companies like YG or JYP and soon SM joining this platform.

The great thing about Weverse is that it allows fans and artists to interact directly with posts and comments, while the operating environment is also spacious. Besides, the announcement updates from the management company related to the artists are also timely caught by fans through this platform.

Even so, even when it becomes the main platform for most artists from different companies, it still makes fans feel uncomfortable by the lack of some features such as lack of subtitles, lack of translation. exact or sometimes error message. But in the end, fans stick with it because there is no better place to interact with the artist than this app.

However, it seems that after a number of complaints, HYBE will be making some big and important changes to the platform. In HYBE’s “Q1 2023 Earnings Report” they announced changes to Weverse coming in the near future. It includes: Weverse Jelly, Weverse DM, Weverse By Fans, Membership +...

Although Weverse DM is soṃệẗḧing that fans know about and “Weverse by Fans” seems to be hot, it is “Membership+” that gets people talking the most. This has been the source of all the anger over the past hours as fans have seen HYBE force them to add a new fee to access certain features.

Paid for artists' content is nothing new and some options seem reasonable to be paid services but here HYBE forces users to pay for some features that should be. they must be free to use. It includes like subtitles, ad-free options and early instant playback access. The funny thing is that these features are also things that users have been able to use for free before.

When the news came out, many people started joking about how V's Weverse Live broadcast was even shorter than advertised...

"Me waiting for the ad on weverse to finish only to find out taehyung already ended the live:

Meanwhile, most netizens are outraged by this change. This is soṃệẗḧing that netizens cannot understand. They are angry because HYBE seems to want to profit from netizens even more. Especially, forcing users to pay a fee to get subtitles for Weverse Live is unacceptable, it will greatly affect international fans and Vlive or other applications have not done so before.

In particular, one netizen shared that while HYBE takes music as a bridge between language barriers, this paid feature of Weverse goes against everything. Moreover, artists also want to use this feature to communicate with fans around the world while Weverse seems to want to prevent communication between international fans and idols.

It has also been pointed out that while paying for subtitles will help international fans understand what their idols are saying, it is much more efficient and cheaper to spend the same amount of money to learn ḳöŕệän:

- I usually wrote subtitles of Weverse Live. However, I don't think it's fan's job, it's function that company basically has to provide to fan. Hybe say that we can use only if we pay it. It's service that ḳöŕệäns don't need. But this function is essential for i-ARMYs.

- I think this is the most dαngєrous of all the paid functions. This causes information imbalance. I think all information should be delivered to fans in a balanced manner. That's why I'm translating news hard. All information must be delivered free of charge.

- I feel sad about the discrimination that i-ARMYs who don't have money will face. I think on the premise that not everyone is rich.

- There are many I-armys who are not in position to pay…but their presence in the fandom is important too, and that can show up in streaming, voting etc. fans shouldn’t be valued only for money

- HYBE and weverse are the greedy money monster. Thank you sis star_jin for your kindness to do the translation. We (iarmy) owe you a lot

- thats truee.. on live now days things are messy ..and solution is subtitles..they should provide

- Why do we have to pay for the sub titles, their goal is penetrating the international market, so why is this? Isn’t it their responsibility to the fans of their artists to provide subtitles? Spell greed = H Y B E

- Hmmm is there any guarantee the artist will have a minimum no. of Weverse live then since now we gotta subscribe?!!? @HYBEOFFICIALtwt @weverseofficial @BIGHIT_MUSIC pls don't let us feel tat u r starting u becoming money suckers.

- this is ridiculous wdym they’ll add weverse realtime subtitles BUT its a paid subscription??? WHATS THE PURPOSE

- imagine it’s the first ot7 live in 2025 and you get hít with an ad in the middle of it. IM SORRY FUCK WEVERSE FOR THIS BUT IM BUYING IM SORRY YALL

- they're gonna launch weverse membership+ too lol so fan letters are cute as well as posts in artists' handwriting BUT PAYING FOR SUBTITLES ON WEVERSE LIVE?????

- the idea of real time weverse subtitles as a premium content is so backward thinking omf like what happened to hybe’s ideology of music being the element that bridges the barrier of language. from their unsuccessful nft, utilizing ai for songwriting to gatekeeping resources like

- we start learning korean, itll be cheaper on the long run cause knowing hybe theyll add jelly’s to weverse live too where u need to pay to continue watching lmao

If that wasn’t enough, during the call, it was revealed that the executives at HYBE deliberately put “Dynamic pricing” for their concerts and artists, including TXT and BTS’s Suga. This is soṃệẗḧing that has been criticized as it means that ticket vendors can increase the prices of tickets depending on demand:

Although it is natural for HYBE to want to expand the platform, the removal of basic features, especially subtitles, becomes a barrier for global fans who want to enjoy K-Pop. As for what Weverse considers "privilege," it's actually the most basic thing a global platform needs to do.