Hit Chinese drama "Joy of Life" has attracted unwanted attention after video streaming services began charging extra fees, on top of paid premium memberships, for viewers wanting to watch new episodes before anyone else.

Experts say the attempts to implement the new service packages stem from the poor performance of the video streaming business model.

When "Joy of Life" began airing a month ago, it got a rating of 7.9 out of 10 on the review-aggregation website Douban.

Problems surfaced when video streaming platforms Tencent and iQiyi began to offer advance screenings of six episodes for VIP members willing to pay an extra 50 yuan (about 7 U.S. dollars). Following a heated debate, they announced they were lowering the preview fee.

The online video sector is booming in China. The revenue stood at 124.9 billion yuan (17.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, and is estimated to be 125.8 billion yuan (17.9 billion U.S. dollars) this year, double that in 2016, according to Statista.

However, video streaming services are not profitable. Financial news website Caijing announced a list of 10 new businesses that have suffered the most losses in 2019. Video-streaming websites iQiyi and Bilibili ranked second and seventh respectively.

"They are trying to earn their money from the VIP services," said Xu Xinyuan, Mintel's tech & media research analyst.

And this is not the first time that extra payments for streaming services have upset viewers. Tencent tried it last year during the airing of the TV series "The Untamed" by offering VIP members an advance viewing of the ending for an extra 18 yuan (about 2.5 U.S. dollars).

However, Xu is not optimistic about the long-term prospects of the extra-fee business model, saying that the model only generates revenue "temporarily."

"It's not going to solve the core problems of the video streaming services right now. And also the film industry is not doing well right now, because users don't like their strategy right now," Xu said.