Oh wow, this looks like a giant can of worms. I can't really comment there as I don't have full knowledge. I'm glad
spyed is responding to the community on this.
Personally, I'm happy with the changes in dA, but I have been disappointed that as an Alpha tester, I am not seeing big change roll outs since the rebrand.
devBUG has been empty for about a year it seems. When my Premium expired, I didn't request extension to help Alpha testing, nothing was going on in the backroom other than telling people to send their notes to the HelpDesk. I don't think I stopped being an Alpha tester, I still see the backroom there and am still categorized as Alpha. But I am not seeing any of these new features. But I don't know how these roll outs work and what sort of testing they would need.
There has been a lax in the CSS community, which is why I have been working so hard at bringing a resurgence. Highlighting the works of newcomers has had some positive feedback. "This Week in CSS" seems to be my most successful article, featuring the new creators who might not have much exposure but are having more productivity than the old hats. Myself, I know I am lazy and not making so many skins or art as I used to. But I am making several articles instead
And Hearthstone. Lots of Hearthstone.
As for artists moving to Patreon as
HappyFaceStar has mentioned, I would say the free vs pay wall thing is artist's discretion. Some artists are using it as a platform for support for giving free art to all. Where as others are using it to get income for each creation they make. I am using it to do both, offer free art as well as rewards for my higher tier of contributors. dA has the
PremiumContent platform, which I had hoped would get better focus. Browsing for Premium Content, Commissions and Prints is not intuitive as is. I am hoping that with the profile over haul and site redesign, we'll see these aspects better integrated into the browsing options. Right now, digging through menus to get to key features is confusing for those who do not already know of the existence of these features. Even knowing it is there, I had to go to Shop>Commissions in order to see those, when it should just be on a neat drop down "buy Art" doesn't say "Prints & commissions" to me. And there is no search through Premium Content that I know of? Perhaps if the "Prints" tab on an artist's profile were instead a "Support" tab, where it would have Commissions, Prints, Premium Contents, Motion Books and Donate (or some subscribe option like Patreon) all in one place. Patreon is innovative in that it enables Artists to reach their supporters in a way that died out centuries ago. Patronage. It made me remember that people love creators and want them to create, we make a difference in their lives. Patreon lacks the social networking aspect of dA, it is harder to search for and communicate with other artists there. We have that already on dA.
If more focus were shifted on crowdfunding the artists here then dA would not need to worry about losing active memberships. Majority of my internet traffic to any of my sites stems from dA. If I could better monetize that traffic on dA without needing to expand my horizons (I am on RedBubble, Etsy, Patreon, TeachersPayTeachers, etc) then I could focus my work better. I should be getting traffic
to dA instead of from dA. I can barely get my FB friends/family to visit my links. They are confused by them (okay, my Mom is confused but I got her to make an account). My dA friends there already see my stuff, lols! And they get why I always emote with colons around whatever.
(does it bother you that ":" and "colon" are the same word? no colonoscopy emotes please). And the people on dA already are the creators and artists, etc who need traffic to come to them. Patreon achieves this better as it directs traffic to itself. Yes, a lot of the Creators are Patrons of others and they have a social network of helping each other, but majority of their Patrons will be from outside sources. And it seems here, majority of people who come to dA as an art appreciator may not set up an account at all and just come in via Google. But if they had a reason to stay, to support the artists they love, then they might become active community members.
I have made a lot of wonderful connections with people worldwide on deviantART. It is my home. It is the hub for all of my art and social networking. I want to see it grow and flourish and be the community that everyone dreams of. I want it to integrate the concepts of Patreon, TwitchTV (we need artist streaming with better chat integration), YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest... All into one uber site of mega art awesome. And I'd want it all accessible and easily navigated to from my profile page. My profile is the epicenter of everything I do on dA. I visit it first. I post my statuses, check my messages, access my Sta.sh from it. I want to post polls and stream there, too. Sell prints, commissions and Premium Contents. Without cluttering my page with widgets. Not tell my watchers to go to Twitch to watch me stream or go to Patreon to contribute to my art creation. I don't want them to go away from dA. I want those sites to all bring everyone here!
