The story
Built upon the feedback of drama fans, many of whom previously frequented pirated sites for Korean drama, the original site was in beta before going live on August 6, 2009. The founders raised approximately US$12 million from investors before the website was acquired by SoftBank in October 2014 for approximately US$100 million. Softbank sold the site to Warner Bros. in mid-2016.
DramaFever was shut down by Warner Bros. on October 16, 2018, with no advance notice to its subscribers, though, where applicable, refunds to subscribers were hinted at. All that remained on its website was the following message on its main page:
Thank you for nine great years
For nine years, DramaFever offered a place for streaming the best Korean, Chinese and Japanese dramas on-demand, straight to your device. We appreciate the passion of our fans and it's been a privilege to deliver you this content.
While this decision [to shut down the service] is difficult, there are a variety of business reasons that have led to this conclusion. We appreciate each and every one of our fans and their passion for the content DramaFever was able to bring into your lives.
We'd like to take this time to extend our thanks and gratitude to you, our loyal subscribers. We'll be issuing refunds as applicable, and subscribers will receive an email from us with details in the coming days.
Sincerely,
The DramaFever Team
From Wikipedia’s article on DramaFever, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3