For anyone who wants to earn a lot while writing, writing an exclusive story for a novel app is quite tempting. For a short amount of time, you can get to earn a lot upfront (even though you probably won't get paid in royalties unless your story is really popular and read a lot) even if you get paid relatively low per thousand words, like I did.
Because of that promise of being paid for "doing something that you love", many an aspiring writer signed up for those apps. And the companies would take pretty much anyone, as long as they could write at a level that people could understand. And a lot of them would readily agree and sign the contracts, because for them (and for me at the time), it was a good thing for your story proposal/outline to be accepted. It was pretty much a time of short-lived celebration.
Then as the writing progressed, some of them started to ask and complain about things, which were already on the contracts. If they had read them a lot more carefully, they would know what they were getting into. Maybe they would find some other work that wouldn't exploit them as much.
Unfortunately, that advice didn't do anything for me. I did read the contracts that me and my friend were about to sign, and I had warned her of some of the details that were very much unfair in the company's favor. And if it was just me, I wouldn't have pushed through. But I suppose I gave in to that peer pressure, that desperation the household had for a good income.
The money did come useful later on, however I found it had adverse effects on several aspects of my writing and my life, and to be honest, I'd rather lose the money and keep these things:
I am thankful that there's been a recovery somewhat, but it has been and still is a struggle. I would say, though, if there is a chance to do the wise thing, do it. Even if the world around you is telling you that it's foolish in its eyes.