....I think they're a load of bullshit.

I respect DA probably only for the people here. I really like you guys. A lot of you are good buddies of mine and it really makes me feel good when my art gets the attention I never expect it gets.

I also respect DA for the admins that actually care for the few of us. I know there aren't many, and I don't know them by name, but I do know they're there.

However, converting half the site's features to premium membership only, along with the site makeover, and the fact wherever you go you see an ad for premium membership, made me realize that DA is becoming heavily corporation oriented, less for the people and more for themselves.

I joined DA wholly to show off my art and perhaps get improvements on it. And now, at 30,000+ pageviews and a few views and commenters on my art, along with general improvements (I still shudder at what I considered a good submission a year ago ), I feel I've realized that little aspiration. I don't have any bigger aspiration to make a big name for myself as I like to be an anonymous little person (altho more commenters would be nice, not that I'm complaining... )

But I think even someone like myself can see that... well, being a DA member is going to get you a good laugh at when you try to be realistic. I saw when a DA troll member tried to make an account on a real art site, the name of which I'd forgotten (But I know it was more art oriented than community oriented, giving real critique and fine art being involved). The DA member's art was shitty at best, but the guys tried to help him out anyway (but being a troll he was just being bigheaded but that's not my focus). What got me s a lot of those guys on the art site had low expectations of him just because he came from DA.

And really, who can blame them.

We have these fanartists all over the place and the shittiest of MS Paint scrawlers who think that their art is all that. No, no I'm not talking about you, any of you. People I'm friends with have a sense of art and have the potential to improve along with being quite nice people.

But DA is becoming heavily corporation oriented, and as they lose their interest in the community they slowly become ignorant of what sort of idiotic trolls sign up and muck up the reputation even more.

DA, a good reputation is not a bunch of pretty shiny features. A good reputation isn't letting big-name companies make ads for you. A good reputation isn't allowing said shiny features to be only available by paying. In fact, all those reasons make you look like a bigheaded know it all.

This site is supposed to be about art. The focus is moving less and less from art and more towards the premium features and a lot of other things that just prove DA is less oriented with the community, no matter how much they claim otherwise. If they paid any attention to the people, they'd realize DA V6 was a shitty addition to the DA member, and no one wants it. But hey, here we are.

Just a rant spurned by those damn news messages I get about customizable journals.

...Although I think the shit REALLY hit the fan when they made some existing features, like critique, be premium only. What the shit.