Angel-of-Milkyway

EDIT Aug 6th, 2015: THE RUMOR WAS OFFICIALLY DEBUNKED! THE SITE IS NOT SHUTTING DOWN!

Also, I heard from a reliable source that DA is NOT in any kind of financial trouble to begin with! I made this journal entry in the assumption that deviantArt was trying to cover up for potential losses but that has since been proven to NOT be the case! They merely want more income, but are not covering up for losses.
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EDIT 2: Jul 18th, 2016:

The journal I linked above has since been deleted as the group itself is gone; but basically, the founder of dA himself said dA IS NOT shutting down, and actual information found online (with charts) proved that financially speaking, dA is doing just fine.

So, no need for any kind of panic!

I wrote this journal originally to adress the uproar that followed when people were signing the petition against CORE approximately a year ago, frightened that dA might be losing money and hence be closed down. This assumption was made under zero basis, and spread like wildfire when misinformed members began to panic. I repeat: there is no need to worry! DA is not going anywhere!

It has also since been come to my knowledge that the ads dA shows on their site are unbearable. So, while I did suggest in this journal entry that you might want to disable your adblock if you wish to support DeviantArt, but if you choose to not do that, I will not judge you. The suggestion was made merely in order to give an alernative to buying CORE for those who wished to support dA in some way but didn't wish to or couldn't purchase CORE.

EDIT 3: Jun 19th 2016:

I've now learned the source for the new wave of panic is a series of journals made by a former dA staff member.

All I can say is that he is probably NOT the most reliable source available as his personal agenda against dA is known to be pretty massive. 

Anything I can conclude from his journals is that all he is doing is disagreeing with dA's policies (and to be honest, who isn't at this point) and taking his conclusions way too far. Anything he says are speculative at best.

Just because there is a possibility (which in itself isn't a known fact, merely speculation) of some type of financial struggle, rarely means a site is actually going to be closed down. Not sites as massive as dA.

What is I see happening here instead, is that people are spreading false information IN ORDER to make people mass-panic and leave the site for dA's competitors; aka create what they preach, due to their personal agenda against the site and the people who run it, and actively wishing them harm.

Unless we hear anything from an actually reliable source, I wouldn't be listening to those who spead this rumor that dA was shutting down.

You may read the journal I originally wrote about this (in August 2015) below, but since new information has since arised, I should stress that what it says about adblock and deviantArt potentially losing money due to people using it is MERELY MY OWN SPECULATION and, according to the proof we saw, is probably not affecting dA as much as I originally thought.

Original journal entry begins from here:

Lately there has been a lot of uproar on the risk of losing deviantArt entirely if you sign the petition against CORE.

A lot of misinformation has been spread and I need to assert them.

First off, you do not need to worry! Website-based businesses such as deviantArt do not work that way, they do not go bankrupt anywhere near as easily as other forms of business. Also, we do not aim for this. The only reason why we wish for the Core boycott is to make Deviantart listen to us. It has failed to do that for years, and we have finally had enough.

Second, we need to clear up a few things. We do not want to remove what CORE represents. We want only to change it back to 'Premium' and bring back the prices to the level they were, or lower. And here is why it should happen:

1. The reason Premium has been deviantArt's #1 source of income is naturally because so many people use adblock that prevents them from gaining more ad-revenue. Why do people use adblock instead of buying the Premium? Simple!

The Premium was WAY TOO EXPENSIVE TO BEGIN WITH.


When the only perks the average user were interested in it were the removed ads and a chance to change your username, you understand why people would simply not buy Premium. The other available perks then were completely useless to 98% of deviantArt users, so you understand why the concept was faulty to begin with.

What does deviantArt do, though? It does the exact opposite what it should do, which of course was to make Premium more attractive to paying members, and this would have been by giving us better and more usable perks, and REDUCING ITS PRICE to around $15-20 a year, and the same for Super Groups. For that money there would have been more paying customers guaranteed,

AND THE PROBLEMS WOULD HAVE BEEN SOLVED!


2. Another thing they did that was incredibly stupid was doing this without informing us about it. And the logo is really ugly. You can understand people do not take such things well, and while these were definitely problems as well, the bigger problem was the beforementioned; that they do NOT do the SMARTEST THING to do.

3. If deviantArt needs more money, it needs to make its users happy. Currently, it is failing at that. It does not listen to our concerns especially regarding art thievery and these updates, it changed things we did not ask for nor consent to, and it unannouncedly rises up prices to cover the costs of the FARCE that was the community "facelift" redesign and the mobile application - both of which were near-flops.

They are doing the exact opposite a smart business is supposed to be doing and if they do not realise it on their own, they have to once we vote on our feet. It is likely the only way they will actually ever listen to what we have to say. We do not want DeviantArt gone. But we want DeviantArt to realise the mistakes it has made, and to fix them and that happens by making us HAPPY.

And currently they are not doing that.

DeviantArt has brought this in on itself by failing to listen to our concerns in the past. We only want to help, and the only way we can is by making them listen to us and this seems to be the only way it can be achieved.

They have not listened to what we've had to say about anything in the past. They do not respond to issues regarding art-thievery, they update the site with near-useless features and changes that do not go well with the community. Of course people don't like it and members leave! And with this expensive project messed up added to it, you can guess why they need the money.

But here is the thing:

IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO PAY FOR THEIR MISTAKES.


tl;dr: Raising the prices was the last thing they should have done. The wisest thing to do would have been to keep Premium as it was and reduce its cost to around $15 and advertise the **** out of it. That is how you fix up for losses AND keep your members happy, and perhaps even make them even happier than they were!

That said,

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HELP DEVIANTART, DO NOT USE ADBLOCK! (Disclaimer: this is only a suggestion for those who wish to help deviantArt but do not wish to purchase a CORE-membership. Also, make sure your online security is appropriately up-to-date with a great all-round anti-virus software and firewall. I recommend F-Secure SAFE.)


That is the easiest way for you to ensure deviantArt will keep on running as they get more ad revenue and do not have to lean so heavily on the income from paying members, and holy crap, by this way you actually don't have to pay a dime for it!

Spread the word, amigos! Fret not! This isn't over yet!

#core #coremembership #boycottcorememberships #BOYCOTTCORE

Also, this:
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And more:
Core, A.K.A. dA's biggest fuckup yet.
So, I think everyone knows about the thing by now. It exploded so enourmously fast, when suddenly people refreshed their notifications pages and got lazored in the eyes by those vivid, fugly orange (stolen: http://sta.sh/0lcbhvlf4vi) symbols by their friends' usernames who had Premium. An hour later, someone discovered that the prices were almost doubled and by then, the flaming shitstorm was impossible to stop. 
So what has Core done??
RAISED THE PRICE OF: 3 MONTHS MEMBERSHIP FROM $8 TO $15 (+87,5%)
  12 MONTHS MEMBERSHIP FROM $30 TO $50 (+66%), while simultaneously
REMOVED "1 MONTH" AND "TIL' ALL HELL FREEZES OVER (7 YEARS)" OPTIONS
REPLACED OUR BELOVED DARK-GREEN PREMIUM STAR WITH AN ORANGE DRAGONBALL RIPOFF THAT OFTEN GLITCHES OUT (http://sta.sh/21p8karkpnou) AND A BADGE THAT NOBODY WANTED  

Please sign this petition: www.change.org/p/deviantart-co…

We are not paying TWICE AS MUCH for LESS (Core gives literally nothing of interest for 98% of the users)
We are not supporting a community that DOESN'T COMMUNICATE (like, listen to our complaints about art-thievery, or take any feedback from us)
We are not supporting changes we DID NOT CONSENT TO (the new platform is junk, the logo is junk, the CORE thing is super junk, you're still not doing anything about art thievery, the new features are not relevant to most users and still look freaking messy and confusing... need I go on?)

We are not supporting a community where we ARE NOT HEARD.

BOYCOTT CORE!

#boycottcore, #boycottcorememberships #boycottcoremembership #boycottcoremembershipsstopthecore #stopthecore, #stopcore,

We want prices down! We want to be heard! We want better logos and features (go back to the originals if you must)! Stop messing with us!

WE WANT A COMMUNITY WORTH OF OUR SUPPORT! THIS DEVIANTART IS NOT IT!

Please return the page layout to the way it was.

Sincerely

Users

Sorry, I forgot to inform you that the livestream was over for 7 hours ago or so. Thank you for everyone who participated, it was lots of fun!