> the dream combination is probably publishing in-progress with subscriptions

If you are into Chinese webnovels you'll be familiar with the subscription predatory practices that big companies like Qidian have, where the real cost of a whole 1500-chapter novel (inflated because of the perverse incentives of subscription-based revenue) ends up being close to 500USD

It is sad watching the transition from fan translations' funding trough donation pooling into predatory big-novel subscriptons/per chapter "tokens"