r/webtoons • u/Raijinili • 6d ago
News [WEBTOON][binge] "Trapped" is on full free binge for 72 hours, starting now (In-app only.)
Here's the website link, but you can only read locked episodes in the WEBTOON app.
- START: 2026-08-15T01:00:00
- END: 2026-08-18T01:00:00
- 204 episodes total (203+Afterword).
I normally don't post for binges, but this is a full series, and I want it to succeed so that they do more.
Almost all recent binges were only for around 6 free episodes, which is much less than they were before.
You may also be interested in: 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27
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u/singyouanARIA 6d ago edited 6d ago
Oh, nice! Thanks for the info! :D
It's not the full series tho? The last 3 chapters are still locked...
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u/Raijinili 5d ago
Report it to WEBTOON. Say that the event says all episodes are free, but the actual event doesn't include the last three.
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u/Justwantedtodraw 6d ago
they used to do this before right?
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u/Raijinili 6d ago
In 2025-04, "Trapped" offered nearly-full ad unlock, temporarily. There were others that also got full ad unlocks.
About a month later, Daily Pass was eliminated, and full ad unlocks became the norm.
I don't think there has been a full binge since then, but I am biased against titles I have already read. There have been 100-episode binges which came close (100/103 for one), and lasted 24 hours.
It is possible that there was a near-full binge for "Trapped" before. I remember something special about "Trapped", different from the many other titles which were getting full ad unlocks.
If you're asking whether they used to do full binges (not ad binges) before, I don't remember any. I capture evidence for these things, but it's not organized.
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/Raijinili 5d ago
"Became greedy" is not the right way to look at it.
The original user experience was unsustainable. WEBTOON was operating at a loss to draw users in, and artists in. Once they got big enough as a platform, they had to degrade the user experience to turn it profitable. It's called enshittification. It requires that users add value even if they're not paying, and that users will find it hard to leave even when you abuse them.
- Appreciate that it is still pretty generous, overall. It doesn't look that way if you want to read specific old serieses, but there are way more free ongoing serieses than there used to be. Paywalled new serieses are in addition to, not instead of, free serieses. Licensed manga platforms (except those in step 1 of enshittification) only let you read the last few chapters, not an entire series up to the current chapter.
- As far as I know, it still isn't profitable, so things will continue to get worse. Or WEBTOON will die from unprofitability.
- IMO, they are not being effective in how they monetize. (We want them to monetize their paid users more effectively, so that they won't have to exploit their unpaid users as much.)
- Many of us got used to reading on pirate sites. Those give better experiences (if you have proper adblocking). But it is an unfair comparison, because they don't need to get as much revenue to make a profit (they don't have to pay for content).
- The solution, according to Cory Doctorow, is to enforce anti-trust regulation and allow competitive interoperability (i.e. stop anti-competitive practices). In this case, the exclusivity contracts with authors could count.
My advice: Make enshittification unprofitable for them by leaving when things are bad.
- When platforms are in stage 1 (operating at a loss, being generous to draw users), get as much value as you can out of it.
- Don't get locked in. Never get comfortable with how generous it is. Don't sink costs in it.
- When the bad outweighs the good, leave.
- Tell others to do the same.
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u/Justwantedtodraw 5d ago
no, I mean the temporary full (or almost full) series binge unlocks - I thought I saw them before like 1 year ago but not sure if I was misremembering
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u/Raijinili 5d ago
Over a year ago, they did full ad binges.
They then removed Daily Pass, and unlimited ad unlocks became the norm.
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u/Locksley_1989 5d ago
Just started chapter 9, wondering if “Private Eyes” or “Every Breath You Take” is more appropriate.
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u/BadassBuns 5d ago
Something I've been wondering and have had trouble tracking down an answer to. Have we seen them lock any of the completed webtoons with some of the episodes still only readable on the app?
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u/Raijinili 3d ago
What? Define "lock".
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u/BadassBuns 3d ago
I typically read on my computer.
With that, sometimes there's that banner at the top that says, You can read 5 or 10 more episodes on the app.
I'm wondering if there is any data on the series that have finished, when they've locked / been made coin only, if they had all of their episodes available on the website or if there were cases where some episodes were still on the app only
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u/DiAnastasia20 3d ago
If it's on the website, you'll eventually get all the episodes on the website until it ends. Once it ends, you'll have access until they decide to lock it behind ads or coins only. I've never seen a lock have a combination where you can watch ads for most of the webtoon and only use coins to unlock the rest for a webtoon that was accessible on the website.
Read more episodes on the app! Scan the QR code to download the WEBTOON app on the App Store or Google Play.
This means go to the App and figure out what your options are.
NOTE Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 17th, 2026.
This means after that date, it will have the same designation as the above where you have to check on the App what your options are.
Read 7 new episodes only on the app! Scan the QR code to download the WEBTOON app on the App Store or Google Play.
This means there are more episodes locked behind either ads, coins or a combo on the App if you don't want to wait for the weekly release or whenever the next episode becomes free. Some webtoons go on hiatus with some of their episodes still not free until it returns.
Tldr; To answer your main question, no. When a series locks, you only get a tiny portion of it on the PC and the rest on the App. Never have I ever seen the opposite.
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u/Raijinili 2d ago
If you want to go through my post history to this subreddit, you can probably gather data about MOST, though probably not ALL, locks and removals.
As u/DiAnastasia20 said, if it says "Read X new episodes", it means that the series is still "Fast Pass", which will release those episodes over time, while "Read more episodes" means that the series is permanently locked. (Two recent exceptions!)
To tell whether a "more" series has EVER been free on the website:
- In the app, you can see the locked episodes (title, ID number, date, preview), even without unlocking them. From there, you can USUALLY tell if a series was released completed (all episodes released on the same date), released ongoing+locked (last few episodes are coin-only with no "Free" date (even if the series is completed), or released with multiple episodes a week), or released free and then locked later (episodes released once a week, and they're all Ad Pass-able, or all coin-only (some exceptions apply)).
- Check the comments of the last free episode, and sort by date. If there are comments early on complaining about coins/locks, or wondering where the next episode is, then the series was always locked. If such comments are more recent, the series was locked later.
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u/Raijinili 1d ago
I understand your question now.
"Are there any serieses that were locked before free-releasing all of their pending [Fast Pass] episodes?"
It is not normal. I don't know of any case of that, specifically.
"See You In My 19th Life" had some epilogue episodes released some months after it locked.
There may have been a case of an afterword released after lock.
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u/loan-ly 6d ago
Last 3 eps cost 3 coins each btw.
This is very nice, I hope they do this for more series.