Dear DeviantArt:

Enough is enough. I'm tired of dealing with this. I've been getting spammed with messages asking me to get a subscription, and now as I understand it, certain features have been taken away from free users (such as the advanced critique feature). I haven't had a subscription for the entire five years that I've been on this site! Why in the world would I want one, and what in the world makes you think I'm going to just sit here and take your attempts to get me to buy one?

If it weren't bad enough, the messages have to be completely stock. How do I know this? I just got one today stating that I had over 100 deviations. I have 90! Precisely 90! 90 is not 100! If the messages were somewhat personalized, they'd at least be slightly unbearable, but the fact that these subscription spams are impersonal makes them infinitely worse! And that's only the beginning of the issues I've got with this turn.

To me, it doesn't smack of wanting to suggest new features to the free users or to kindly ask them to help out the site. And trust me, I understand that times are hard, but in times of trouble, you need to preserve loyalty, not test it. Pressuring users into buying a subscription who have never otherwise bought or even though about buying a subscription is in my opinion a bad business decision, if not unethical. I would imagine there are more free users on DA than there are paying members, and what do those free users get? A place to store their writings and art where they can be shown to the world...maybe. That's about it.

DA is starting to show signs of catering too much to the people who buy the subscriptions rather than to their original user base, the free users. While I would never suggest that all features should be made available to all users (there has to be a reason to pay and support the site, after all), DA's focus cannot be solely on the paid members! You, DA, are alienating the free members, and I would not be surprised if you started losing members because of this.

I know one thing for certain...you've lost one. Pardon my rare word of curse, but fuck you, DeviantArt. I'm not going to buy a subscription. I'm not even going to post anything on here anymore. Maybe I'm not the most influential member on this site, but maybe the fact that anyone is leaving because of what you are doing should be a wake-up call. If you do happen to come to your senses, I may return. But if not...

Goodbye and good fucking riddance.