As a literary work, novels usually needed to be paid to read the complete version online. This was because novel authors and websites often viewed the copyright of novels as a business investment and hoped to gain economic benefits from it. Free novel websites might use some business models such as advertising, virtual goods, or a service to increase revenue. However, free novel websites usually imposed some restrictions on the content, such as only providing some chapters or missing some chapters, in order to reduce their dependence on the author and the website. In addition, some novels may be restricted by copyright protection laws and cannot be read in full on free websites. These novels could only be read in full on certain paid platforms. Therefore, although some novels could be read online for free, there was usually no free complete novel to read online.