When you're a QC, but that doesn't mean much anymore

General Discussion
1

Hi, folks.

With all the recent changes occuring on Viki, as a long-term QC on Viki I’m starting to feel… small.

It all started a few months ago when I found out that a series I translated almost all by myself a few years back was no longer available for me to watch, to edit, to do anything really.

Then I went through the list of series I translated fully and realized about 80% of them are now locked.

A question naturally posed itself: Am I as a QC and is my work now irrelevant on a long-term basis?

My work, which I thought would be available to viewers for a time longer than a few months, became less appreciated.

Asides from that, we can all notice a rise in the number of series which are exclusively translated to English, (perhaps under the disguise of) saying that the English translations deemed for Kocowa have proprietary rights and are not available to be used further.

Do we HAVE TO get those English translations on Viki? Can’t we make our own, as we did so far?

Which posed another question for me: Is my work as a non-English language translator no longer really wanted?

I want to know these things. I don’t want to try my best to find a middle ground where I could, despite all the limitations I’m facing as a QC, still work on a series open to my region, just to be seriously disappointed in a few months when that series gets locked.

I would like to hear your stand point on these two issues.

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I’m with you! Same thing happen to me and I must say I’m angry and disappointed so much, that I even ask myself why am I still here.
If someone from management is reading this, let me explain a few things. We are translating these dramas because a lot of people in our countries do not know English on such a level that they can watch dramas with English translations. You can hear even those who know English say how it’s totally different and much better to watch the show in their own language. So, this was Viki’s strongest point, if you ask me, and it’s sad that it’s slowly disappearing. You will probably say that the problem is in copyrights, but I really don’t understand this. If you can make money in my country, even if it’s to a much lesser degree than in America for e.g, is it really better to not make money at all outside of America?
The second issue that is really embarrassing for us QCs that do not live in USA or some other, more popular country, is that we, although working hard here for years now, can’t anymore watch or edit dramas which we have already translated!!! A lot of old dramas are now closed for this or that region even for QCs, so I’m asking you, for what reason we should stay here and translate? For badges? Are you making me a fool, cause I certainly feel like one? If number of QCs with 300 lines per 6 months is increasing and you think that such volunteers do not deserve privileges that QCs previously had, then make some kind of ranking to show your appreciation to those of super-QCs with more than 200000 lines here and years of dedication. That’s all I had to say, thank you.

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Honestly due all that has happened in the past few months I’m on Viki much less and I haven’t made any seg or sub in a while. Now my profile says I have 100 days orso left to make 500 contributions or else I will loose my status. Well that is a first as that never happened before in all those years. I’m also not to happy about the current changes. I mean take “Black Knight” for example. I liked that series but as a segger I was so annoyed and kept thinking “I could seg this so much better!”, “Did they even think about the viewers who need to read the subs?” The times I had to pause and rewind the sub to read it fully is countless. And yes by now some channels I worked on are blocked for me too.

And another thing I hate is that I have to resort to other sources to watch my Kdrama more while in the past I was so happy I could find everything on Viki. Like now Viki is promoting “The great seducer”/Temped a lot on their social media. So yes I got curious and wanted to watch it… well surprise I can’t! So now I’m watching it elsewhere because I have no clue when or if Viki will let me watch it one day.

And the last thing: On facebook they often times have those give aways lately for goodies. Like a few weeks back they had a give away for one of the Hwayugi plushies. As a plushie lover I of course wanted to enter but I couldn’t because I wasn’t in the correct region. So someone who worked their ass off for years on Viki and helping it grow to how it is today can’t enter but someone who randomly passes by and only is on Viki for a week can enter the give away if they are in the correct region?! It’s not that I’m greedy to win prizes or anything but the unfairness of it all pisses me off.

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Sadly, it has come to this bc the site realized that not everyone in here is giving good quality work to the site. Although, I feel this site is no longer the site it was many years back when I joined. Pleasant to do good volunteer work for, and that is the reason why I stopped working ‘‘on air’’ shows a long time ago. They know how hard it is to do segmenting, subtitles and give good quality work to this site, but it seems they no longer care for the one’s who give their 110% here.

I believe that for a while now a lot of people here took ‘‘control’’ of everything like they owned the site. They control who could be in their team and they used several profile pages to sub and seg in many of the dramas. Why? I really have no idea, but maybe ‘‘they do get paid?’’ It would make sense since working so much and not getting paid makes no sense to me at all.

My other theory is that they finally realized that some here give excellent quality work, but we have a large number that are giving very poor quality segments and subtitles. My main complain is the Spanish subtitles. We have these large groups of subbers in Spanish giving subtitles with a translator that are terrible and useless most of the time.

It makes no sense to me their eagerness to say they can sub bc they know English/Spanish language, when in reality they are mainly using goggle translate for all their translation. The senseless and useless subs they give sometimes must be what Rakuten/VIKI site is trying to correct. That includes all languages. I had many ppl. requesting to do other language subtitles in my drama, and when I check their page and past subs they’ve done, they are missing words and is obviously done with a translator.

Whatever the issues are, we can’t expect them to let us know what’s going on since we are only ‘‘volunteers’’ who chose to do this work fro FREE on our own free will. Although you guys provide here wonderful volunteer work, not everyone here is doing that, and it has to be stopped. I think that the changes implemented here are solely the right of its corporate owners, but I still think an explanation of what’s going on will show the respect all VOLUNTEERS here deserve.

I think changes are good, but respect is something everyone deserves in life, and all of you, whom the channel were locked, deserve the respect to be informed why they did this, and if all your hard work will go to waste: YOU ALL DESERVE AN APOLOGY from the site’s owners, or whoever is implementing this new changes.

Like I said, changes ARE needed here since is getting out of hand how many people (in different languages not only spanish) are giving the site poor quality work, that in the long run will affect more ppl to join as paying subscribers. It’s not my intention to offend anyone here. I am just stating MY OPINION which I can back up with evidence since I have saved what to me is a total disrespect from some in here. They know what they are doing is wrong, and ironically these are the people that work the most in many dramas on air here ar Rviki site (I’m talking about Spanish subbers here).

I hope this site doesn’t make the mistake of losing the ppl. who are a blessing to this site providing the best quality segs and subs in many different languages.

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Yes I know that poor subbing/using google translate etc is a problem for years and maybe it has gotten a bigger problem today. The problem for CM’s is we have to depend on others telling us something is off. To stick to Spanish, I only know a few words like “hola” and “gracias” so there is no way I can detect something is poorly done or Google Translated. That’s why I always ask people who PM me about it to collect proof and send it to Viki. Not that it always helps but I know some people got warnings, their account suspended etc. I mean the person who detects something is off can collect proof more easily than someone who doesn’t know Spanish.
The only thing a CM can do is kicking the person out of the team and other teammates can overwrite the wrong subs with correct ones.

If that is one of the issues why Viki is blocking other languages, Viki should stand up more and deal with the problem better instead of blocking also the good ones.

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@ dudie
You are so right since great subbers like you and many others are being treated so unfairly. I hope they realize that you never know what you got, until you lose it. Having subbers providing in dramas so many different language is a GOLD MINE. If they don’t realize that then, they don’t even deserve you guys.

Hope they come back to their senses.

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The way I understand it is that viki is with its back to the wall. I could word it less elegantly and say that Kocowa is holding viki by the… attributes.
As Kocowa has control on most popular Korean shows, viki has been inundating us with Chinese ones. If viki wants to have those Kocowa goodies which most viewers want, to keep them from running away, it has to bend backwards and do everything that Kocowa dictates - restrictions included.
Therefore, whatever we say won’t change anything, since it’s not in their power to make us more happy by lifting these restrictions. Feeling frustrated with viki is totally unfair and writing lengthy posts to vent this frustration is totally useless.
Yeah, of course I also wish things didn’t go this way. But since they did - and it isn’t viki’s fault - I decided to not add to their problems by whining over spilled milk, and to keep being loyal in their hour of crisis.

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There we go again, with the “stop whining” story. People have the right to be angry no matter how the situation is in or out of Viki’s control. And lengthy posts are what keeps us going back to work, no matter how hopeless sometimes (and lately a lot) the situation seems. I absolutely DON’T think it’s unfair to complain and I also don’t think keeping your mouth shut, as some choose to do, is helpful either.

The problem is here, and we need to somehow deal with it.

And it’s only when somebody keeps pointing at the problem that the problem actually STANDS THE CHANCE of being resolved.

I ask the community, does anybody have any suggestions how these issues might be tackled?

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Coming from you, that’s a laugh. You can really write a lot here, too. But for whatever reason you chose to make it short this time. The only crisis here is the lack of communication and RESPECT to many devoted volunteers here like. bozoli and many more that work as CM and segment as well many on air dramas, too.

Since you mention
‘‘The way I understand it is that viki is with its back to the wall. I could word it less elegantly and say that Kocowa is holding viki by the… attributes’’

It is my understanding the new owners of Rakuten/Viki are Chinese so of course is understandable they want to promote more their Chinese dramas that for so long were pushed to the back by viki site. But…Are they forcing the volunteers to work in Chinese dramas only? Is that what’s going on here?

What is so unreasonable and unfair to me, is for them not to communicate, and inform the volunteers here what is going on, why all these changes are going on here, so the devoted volunteers here don’t feel hurt, used and abused.

I was hoping they were trying to improve the site but I see is more like a control thingy.

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I’m sorry, just a small correction. I believe Rakuten Viki is still Japanese owned and doesn’t seem to promote one culture’s dramas over another. It’s probably due to Chinese dramas becoming more popular now and the licenses being made available.

I pretty much agree with a lot of what my fellow QCs wrote. I do feel being a QC isn’t all that special anymore or that volunteers, in general, aren’t being appreciated for the hard work they put forth. Those new all English dramas have subs that give me nightmares too. I had to give up a drama I really wanted to watch, after 4 episodes. because my eyes hurt so bad and the subs were so dry and boring. And it was a comedy. I kept thinking, “Our teams would have done this better.”

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I never wrote that you “should” stop whining. I just said that it’s useless.
If letting out your feelings is of any comfort to you, then by all means do so. If I believed it was a cause likely to be won by that, I would be the chief whiner here!

That was my whole point, that because of the nature of the problem, we cannot resolve it, and us complaining about it won’t make chances become even 0,000001% more.

If we complain about how viki works, when we suggest changes to the website, to our inbox, to our tools, to how CMs are chosen, things that depend solely from viki, then yes: we do stand a chance, and there have been some - few - instances in which we were heard.
But in this case, the Kocowa situation is out of the hands of viki so…
As if a child of a poor family complains because he doesn’t have the expensive brand name clothes and shoes that his classmates have. His complaints just make his parents feel bad, they achieve nothing else.

And to the other person who attacked me saying that my usual posts are lengthy and for some reason I chose to be briefer now: I was briefer because I had nothing more to say about the matter. How many words are needed to say “there’s nothing we can do”?
Even in this post, I’m just repeating myself, because people seem not to have read my previous one properly.

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Irmar, I think you yourself aren’t exactly aware just how sometimes your posts come off as. I reacted to your post this way because it’s not the first time you accuse anybody who ever slightly criticises Viki as being whiney, childish and disloyal. These are exactly the words you mentioned (both in our last discussion and in this one) and implied to describe people who complain. We are all passionate individuals here.

I personally think it’s useless not to say anything bad at all. If I learnt anything while working for larger companies is that if you don’t complain at all, your bosses think nothing is wrong. Same can be applied here. It is also a question of setting one’s priorities, in this case Viki’s. Ultimately, if treated seriously and properly - via a well-developed system, complaints lead to improvements which the company only benefits from in the long run.

So, speaking of the long run, which we all hope Viki will have, I don’t see which advantage Viki will in the future have compared to broadcasting conglomerates such as Kocowa, if they let their QCs softly go. Viki’s niche was precisely translations to many languages and almost worldwide coverage in legal streaming.

And letting QCs softly go is exactly what’s happening here. Not only are the benefits of QCs reduced and we don’t have access to our own projects anymore, but we are also forbidden more and more to work on various projects, rendering us less wanted.

What I see here is Viki fighting for its mostly English- and Spanish-speaking audience, which it will loose with every show that gets removed from Viki due to Kocowa’s own existence.

And in this on-going fight for the audience Viki is consciously deprioritising QCs.

On a short run this might pay off. On a long run it might bring Viki down, given a critical threshold of QCs quit. It’s a high-stake gamble and it depends very much on Viki taking our passion and dedication a bit for granted.

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Irmar, let me get this straight cause I still don’t understand. Basically you want to say that the old channels are closed and we are having more and more channels done by Kocowa and only broadcasting on RViki because those were the conditions that Kocowa put on RViki? Right? If so, I must ask what is the point of having those dramas on Viki? It’s certainly not for this community. Why? Because now Viki is covering the same regions as Kocowa and with more and more shows with Kocowa’s translations on Viki, what is the difference between them? They must’ve had some kind of interest to accept such ridiculous conditions, and OK I can live with that, but I think they are making a mistake, or new managers of Viki have a totally different goal in mind. My mathematical brain calculated that in near future Kocowa will eat up K-dramas on Viki and Viki will stay with only C-dramas. I can live with that too, but let me ask one thing. Did Kocowa insisted that Viki must cut down rights of QCs and on old channels too? How it could work until now? Maybe I’m wrong but I believed that this community existed because of hard work of QCs. If we are no longer needed on K-drama channels we deserve some kind of explanation. You know, say it loud and clear: We will translate this or that K-drama only in English, Spanish and Portuguese and it will be closed for most of the regions in the world. It is a common sense, you know, to be accurate in what you do, especially to your workers. Why would I ask to be a moderator on a channel which I can’t access? I even had a situation when CM turned me down for moderator rights on her channel because I had more than three “on air” dramas on my list, but actually none of those dramas got license or were available for my region and me. And for more, this discussion would not be needed and we wouldn’t be guessing what is going on if someone took time and showed some respect by explaining the situation. Or maybe we are not so important. I remember the time when Viki advertised itself as a place that’s nurturing different languages of the world. It seems that is slowly going up in smoke. In the end let me tell you one more thing, it is ridiculous and humiliating that Korean-English translators must use VPN to translate!!! Shouldn’t Viki make them as some kind of special QC with special rights and status!?

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So are you saying that you read a sentence on this post and your brain automatically substituted it with a sentence from my previous posts?

I think you, as many human beings, no, most human beings, tend to have selective memory. When there is something I don’t like, and I think it could be improved, I’m one of the most vocal people around here. I have criticized viki countless times. If you had time to waste, you could check my posts, but of course I’m not going to ask anybody to do that boring job!
When the CM selection discussion was on, I was one of the most fervent participants. I have written many times on the fake reviews problem and also on the lack of information in the Vikipass sections, asking again and again that viki states more clearly that vikipass does not guarantee subs.
I have written a whole list of things I want changed - which almost nobody read because of its length! That’s how many the things were that I’m not happy with. And when the Bugs section was closed, I took those points, one by one, and made new posts there, in Suggestions and ideas. Then I came back here and asked people to go to Suggestions and ideas and discuss my proposals and upvote them if they agree, since viki said that the most voted ones of each month will get passed on to higher-ups. Most people didn’t even bother doing that, that’s how much they care.

Of course, yes, even when I am frustrated, I prefer the tone to be reasonable and matter of fact. I don’t like to use bold and all caps and multiple exclamation marks (this has nothing to do with you, you are not the one to use this). I rather use headings and bullet points and organize my thoughts in a way that will make it easy to read and understand. I think that keeping it practical and to the point is a better way to communicate to those who actually read this, who are viki staff like Kristie and Marilliam, our contact with the higher-ups, but who don’t make decisions themselves.

If you are really asking me my feelings towards viki, yes, they are mixed. There are lots of things I don’t like and lots of things I like. When the things I don’t like will be more than the things I like, when the balance will tip on the negative, then I will leave. For the moment being the pros are still more than the cons. That’s all. I don’t owe them anything, my “loyalty” is mine to give or take away at any moment. Of course the way I perceive the pros and the cons, or what I consider a pro and what I consider a con is totally a personal choice, and it might be different for other people.

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Yes, the old channels are closed because they lost their license and the rights went back to the old owner, the broadcasting channel. If the broadcasting channel was one of the three that made Kocowa, then the rights went back to Kocowa.
What’s the point of having those dramas on viki? Well, for the viewers, who want more varied content, rather than mostly Chinese and Taiwanese dramas.

The difference is that Kocowa offers only the dramas of those three Korean channels. Viki offers that (but with conditions), plus the other Korean channels, plus Chinese and Taiwanese. And, until their license lasts, the older Kocowa shows which are still in viki’s property. Therefore it’s much richer than Kocowa, and it makes better sense for a would-be subscriber.
Again: the reason they accepted such harsh conditions was to be able to still offer a reasonable amount of popular Korean dramas. They know that many viewers are only or almost only watching Korean dramas, and if the Kocowa content was missing as an option, many people would leave viki (many who didn’t want to pay more for it must have left anyway). Yes, vikipass plus is not available in Europe so that’s a minus, but at least they get to keep their US viewers.

Kocowa has control only to K-dramas of those specific three TV stations: KBS, MBC, and SBS. They are the biggest, but not all. There are still cable channels like TvN and JTBC which generally provide good quality shows.
See here, out of the upcoming dramas, which are on which channel:
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Upcoming_KDrama

When you see, on an upcoming drama, that it belongs to one of the three Kocowa stations, be wary. Of course, viki often has purchased a ‘rest of the world’ license for those shows. Not in the Americas, but everywhere else, like Europe, Middle East and I don’t know where else.
So you can probably guess what your options are just by knowing the channel of the show.

I totally agree with you on this. And I will go further. All QCs should be given free access to everything. But it seems that the TV broadcasting stations were against it sometimes, even before the Kocowa situation. Of course it has become worse now, but I remember having that problem sometimes even before.

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Clearly I never said that. I said that you used almost exactly the same wording before, in a discussion thread elsewhere. Unfortunately, when someone calls my behaviour (and thereby myself) childish, I can’t help but remember that. Also, leave my brain alone. I don’t comment on anyone else’s.

I don’t have selective memory. I remember your posts. They were overbearing at times, but I read them through and you got my like. Unfortunately, at the time, after reading your and others’ posts, I didn’t have much to add. And I am even one of those people that not only reads the bug and suggestions section, but also refers people to it. So, no, you are not alone in this.

But instead of being disappointed that not much has changed upon your first shout-out to Viki (and most likely nothing could have been fixed last summer when things started to go downhill), could you at least find it bearable that some of us still insist that this new(ish) system at Viki needs another change, for the better of QCs? I’m not asking you for the same energy you had in the beginning. But I am asking you to let the rest of us talk about this and come with suggestions.

About the CM selection, I don’t know if things are working out more or less okay atm. I noticed fairly recently that some CMs don’t know English (they have others translate their communication to the team), and that I find to be quite dangerous for the project.

When it comes to the way something is communicated, I think both your practical way of putting things, as well as someone else’s more passionate approach are of equally good value and both should be not only tolerated, but actively used in Discussions to get what we need.

And we need changes. Like now. The real question is how?

That is a very good question. Viki must find some leverage to protect its QCs, if its intent is to keep translating to any other language asides from English. That is a fact.

That’s why I said that Viki is choosing to maintain viewership over the needs of community. Which is a good short-term strategy, but a lousy long-term one.

Suggestions? Suggestions!

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I personally believe each post, each reply, should be judged on its own merits or non-merits. Of course you’re free to disagree.

No I didn’t. At least not in this one. I wrote:

Reading “useless” which is a neutral word and translating into “childish” and “whiney”, which are negative words, just because I may have used these words in past posts about other subjects… how do you describe that?
I would describe it as incorrect perception, as preconception. Reading what you think will be there rather than what really is there.

And you chose to mention only the times when I defended viki, choosing to temporarily disregard the times when I criticised it, thus giving the false impression to whoever reads it that I usually (maybe always!) defend viki no matter what. This is what I called “selective memory”, and it’s the mildest way one can put it. Some newspaper articles use that tactic too. In that case we call it “voluntarily misleading”. In our case, I chose to assume that you innocently forgot, in order to be more positive and polite.

Without precision both in writing and in reading (the internet equivalent of oral dialogue), how can there be real communication?

Language, this very useful communication tool for humankind, is not 100% perfect anyway. We all perceive other people’s words through the lens of our own personality, sensibility, life experience, and even the mood of the day. That’s why different people can interpret the same words differently. If communication through language is imperfect, and it’s impossible to convey intentions exactly just as they are, it’s very easy to get misunderstood, no matter how much carefully we try to choose our words and expressions.
This is a bit frustrating, but I have made my peace with it, it can’t be helped. I know I am doing my best to convey what I am thinking/feeling, and if sometimes I fail, well, I have to admit that some people won’t be on my same wavelength and communication with them is less easy than with others. It happens.
Plus some people might (gasp!) not really like my personality. That also can happen. I’ve learned to accept it more calmly as the years and decades pass, and recognize it’s not a tragedy, life goes on. The important thing is to remain civil (even if the other party is not), and not to linger on negative things which poison us. Agree to disagree and move on.
I have become much better at it with age, but I still have a lot of work to do in that direction. I can more or less do the “civil” thing, that’s the easier part. But… not get affected? I still get heart palpitations when someone attacks me, and sometimes I think about it for hours. So this has to be addressed. It’s not the other person’s fault, it is me who is still not cool and detached enough. Will I have the time to achieve this in this lifetime? Who knows.

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My only one answer and I’m gone.

We’re only human. We have feelings like anyone else here (or not here). We react on impulse too, we can’t go back in time but we can live on and arrange things.
We picked the words we wrote, we assume what we wrote.
We can also pick new words and try to change things.

  • Can we have different opinions and see the situation from another aspect?
  • Can we think differently and express it on this forum (without being condemned or bashed for it or bash people)?
  • Do we want this forum to be a democratic place where we share and write peacefully between volunteers?
  • Can we accept that other people have a different point of view than us even though we don’t agree for a few/some/many things?
  • When I write a post, am I ready to hear a contradictory reasoning, what the other has to say even though his opinion is different?
  • Aren’t we talking about ideas here? Am I against “someone” or against an “idea”?
  • On Viki, do we (volunteers) want the same thing?

The following is not relevant, quite personal but it was a good experience for me:
I can react on impulse too, I’m clumsy with words too, I hurt and I am still hurting family and friends with my words too.
Each time, I only have regrets remaining.

One day, I had a fight with my sister. At this time, one of my Viki friend hearing my story told me:

Do you like your sister or not?

And just this sentence made me think for a long time, what’s more important? Me? Or our relationship? Why am I fighting with her? Am I hurting her with my words (even though I didn’t want to hurt her)? Am I hurting her because she hurt me too? But then, where’s the end? Am I more important than “this that we share”? Is it worth it? What good will it bring? What good will it bring to what I wanted to convey from my initial goal? Is it what I wanted to share with her or other people? Am I a good sister? Am I a good friend? Am I a good listener/reader? Was I fair with her? Did I try to understand her (her words, her own feelings, how she is)?

Different but United in Adversity

This song is for my friend, it’s really peaceful to hear and music always has this soothing feeling for me. I hope it will bring some peace to someone (or at least make them discover a new song).
[I didn’t pick the title of the song, it’s called like that, I can be the fool if you want]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwVbCIA1hgc

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The most upsetting thing to me is that it looks as if Viki is slowly turning into an US only site. Yes the United States are the biggest market outside Asia but why must Viki aim for that too? Why do they want to become DF 2.0? While the US already has so many options for fans to watch Asian content legally. They have DF, Kocowa, Hulu, Netflix and I bet I forgot a few. On the other hand people outside the US only had ONE option (next to the very limited offers at Netflix, no Netflix doesn’t offer the same content worldwide either) and that was Viki. And now that option is slowly being taken away too by those who seem to have a lot of power and seem to think the world only exists of Asia and the United States?!

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I am on purpose not responding to this topic of conversation anymore (although I have much more to add), so that I can focus on the true intention of this thread. I hope you understand.

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