I have heard you can make much more just making your own site than signing with qi from another author and that's ignoring losing most readers not being able to post a funding of any kind and as well as qi not putting these types of novels on rankings or front page
that also depends on readers, if the author has already accumulated his own group of readers then yes.
But if it was someone like me who still new to writing and not many reader actually know my story exists, no matter how shady Qi is,there's still a ton of reader there.
I won't have to get in contracted with Qi if I already have a group of reader of my own.
No matter how good your story is, if no one else read it and knows that it exists then you won't gain anything from it(that is if you want to gain something from it).
And yes, contracted = paid.
If I wasn't so desperate on making money for my daily life(yes, I'm unemployed if you didn't know), then I might not have signed a contracted with Qi.
@keitaro-sempai you sell your soul to the Chinese publishing conglomerate Qidian International for the honor of posting on their site. They might pay you though.
I'm only half joking.
I already lost my soul when I wrote my story.