If you are not aware of the dArama around v6 and subscribers let me inform you, and also let me try to change your mind and help you look at the situation in a more positive and different way.

There has been a lot of drama since the launch of the sleek new v6 of deviantART (round of applause to the staff for making it happen). The release of the new layout included the ability for non-subscribers to view actual thumbnails in their Message Centre, which was a large perk for subscribers pre-launch. Instead of normal members viewing scrawny little lines alerting them that a new deviation has been submitted, they now view nice juicy thumbnails along with the rest of the community, including subscribers.

Now that this feature has gone public, subscribers are starting to think that they are being “cheated” and that their subscriptions were a waste of their money and time. They are complaining to the admins and criticizing their care for the subscriber community. They are also suggesting to “freeze” their subscriptions until more features come out.
Although I am personally a still-loyal subscriber, I can see the concerns and complaints coming from subscribers wanting their private feature back to make their subscriptions “useful” again.

But we have to look on the other side of the subscription: they fuel deviantART. Without subscriptions, deviantartART could not exist. Their servers are expensive (holding millions and millions of submission), they have to pay staff workers (assuming that most are indeed paid and not simply volunteers), and purely just to keep the site refreshed and up-to-date. Without the community paying for subscriptions, deviantART could not afford to keep the site running; therefore dA would have to ultimately shut-down. This simply is enough for many subscribers to pay for a subscription to deviantART. Subscribers should be proud to be part of deviantART’s growth, not reluctant.

And have we forgotten of all the other great features granted to subscribers? Such as: browsing up to 120 deviations at once, not seeing any of the distracting ads, being able to personalize one’s journal with CSS, along with Journal Enhancements (such as polls, personal forums, and a personal shoutbox), being able to bring your favorite deviations onto a phone and to set as a background or to show off to friends, and being able to browse “Way Back” by selecting any date back to 2000 to browse in. These all are wonderful perks to subscribers and many are just taking advantage of these and only considering being able to see thumbnails in your Message Centre and acting as if that was the only feature offered to subscribers.

The staff is also working on new features for subscribers to replace the thumbnail-message-centre feature. If you have any great suggestions, just head over to Subscriber Features and Version 6 and post them to be reviewed by staff members as possible additions in the future. So, even though we are short one feature, soon enough, many others will be added.

As suggested by =rotane, this feature going public really lets the whole community receive that much more exposure. Deviants would now view deviations on their message centre like they were in the deviant’s gallery. They are able to preview these images, and really concentrate on the art itself rather then clicking on every link to view what deviation is held hidden underneath. The latter could get tiring and this new feature really lets the watcher focus on your art.

Oh, and what about the * or = symbol in front of your username. I know, they are purely aesthetics, but hey, they look cool .

So subscribers, instead of thinking of how you lost a feature, think of how you are making deviantART exist to the millions of other users, how many other features you have available at your fingertips, how numerous subscriber only features are soon coming, and how hard staff has worked to revamp the Message Centre into something enjoyable and less time consuming for the community as a whole. So let’s quit being selfish and start thinking in a more positive manner about this whole situation .


,
Matt