Coming from someone who's been on this site for... *checks my profile*... 6+ years: No, the world is not coming to and end. Deviantart does not hate you. And really, this isn't anything new.
For anyone who's confused about what I'm referring to, recently dA has increased the price of premium memberships (now called Core memberships) from around $25 a year to $50 a year. Also they've changed the little symbol thingies next to people's names to indicate the difference between regular/beta/core users.
This is a pretty freaking huge deal for people who:
1) hate the color orange or the fact that they don't have a star next to their username
2) used to buy their year's membership off of 50 cent point commissions they've accumulated throughout the year
3) are common folk who can no longer afford a $50 charge to get all the benefits of their favorite website.
These are valid reasons to be upset. The old prices were pretty much affordable for everyone. You could use dA and all its extra features for an entire year, at the cost of a DVD. Roughly $2 a month. Honestly, that's probably the reason why there had to be a price increase in the first place.
I always thought that buying a membership to a website was just a way to give back to that community, and support something you thought was worth keeping around. I used to moderate a smaller website that offered memberships as well, even though all they did was add a little tag next to your avatar and turn off ads. Why did people buy them? Because they realized how expensive it was for the owner to maintain the site and keep things running for everyone. It was a smaller community than dA, obviously, so all the mods and junior-mods were working as volunteers. But even still, funding was tight. There were often times where we would plan events and activities that would encourage traffic, simply so that the site would earn a few extra dollars from ad revenue for the week.
I'm sure that the cost of running a website as huge as Deviantart is larger than what most people would ever expect. Despite all the hate, dA is still the biggest, most diverse art site around. As for myself, it's pretty incredible to have such a broad audience for my work. It's done wonders with my commission experience and I've been able to collaborate with other artists from around the world. You can do all of that and more without even donating a penny. For me, buying a membership would just be my way of giving back. The extra profile widgets would just be an added plus (do people seriously fork out $25 for those alone?).
I don't know where I'm getting at with this whole rant, but I think my main point is that there are a lot of other factors at play here, and maybe this isn't such an issue that you all need to go off and sign petitions and boycott the whole thing ^_^' Sure, dA should have made some kind of announcement about the price change. And yeah, maybe there should be different types of memberships, or other ways of giving back or getting the perks without having to pay top dollar. But if journal skins and webcams are your main reasons for sticking around nowadays, then maybe your priorities have shifted a bit since you joined. Although I can imagine if you've navigated the site on a premium for the last couple years, this change will be a bit of an adjustment.
Anyways, I'll be staying with dA, for better or for worse x) It's likely the next year or two will see a lot of changes as the staff tracks all the income and traffic fluctuation. *jumps up and down excitedly* *grabs popcorn*
I'll see you all around xP Or not. Ohohoho <3
(plz don't leave, I'll miss you
)Created at simplydevio.us with image resources from freepik.com
I´m glad you´re staying on the site!