That was a good question. It looks like Viki put it so down their main page that people didn’t notice anymore that the feature does still exist and can be fun… when it doesn’t bug (there are often a few bugs, but with time you learn to “fight” them.)
WPs are actually still here. Or were: several of us (probably those who hosted or were part of WPs recently) received an email today saying that the WP service on Viki would be discontinued from December 4th. And here, I would like to say that this decision is stupid as hell.
The tastiest in that email must be the sentence: “Don’t worry – there are still plenty of ways to connect with other fans on Viki, including reviewing shows, participating in discussions, and engaging with us on social media.” Does Viki really compare “one direction messages” to instant conversations?!?
Through WPs, I came to know and appreciate people I would have -never- met through those “normal - one direction” interaction tools. Sometimes we discover dramas, sometimes we finally take the time to fully view a drama we worked on before, etc. WPs are fun, they just need some work to remove the bugs -and- not to be abandonned so down the main page on Viki that no one realizes they still exist and are used daily, even if not for tens of dramas / WPs at a time.
Anyway, you can probably say that this is just me venting because the decision was made and things will be so from now on. It’s most surely true, but I wanted to say that Viki is becoming far less “welcoming / friendly” when it removes the WPs.
At the end of the day, considering that this will happen anyway, does Viki plan to remove the protection that forbids streaming through other services?
For example, if we want to have a “group viewing” through a third platform today (several would offer that), we will see a black screen instead of the images, while for other streaming services it works fine (for example N… or D+, others too). I believe that Teleparty offers to stream Viki through their paid/premium subscription, but Teleparty bugs A LOT more than Viki. And paying to view something one or several of us worked on, creating value for Viki… I really don’t like that concept. If at least Viki removes this protection, it will be extremely sad but we could keep our “live interactions”. It would require subscribing to this or that other service, hopefully for free, while we all usually hate to subscribe to multiple services, so not an ideal solution, but it can be “better than nothing”? After all, we can surely understand that maintaining this WP service requires a cost that the very few users don’t justify: this could be an “in between”?
If Viki doesn’t plan to (or cannot) remove this protection… that decision is stupid as hell, at least in my opinion, and I like WPs so much that I couldn’t help saying it.
Sorry for venting for so many lines.