Rework: Leeching

[1.756]

The all point that this server survived for 3 years is cause of replays limit is absurd coming from a new member let alone coming form a hq member as you
why absurd cause then leachers will just get everything without even caring leaving like on your post

In my main post, I have already replied to the "leechers will take everything" argument, but I'll do it again: leechers are already taking everything; the difference is that instead of seeing one leecher with a thousand posts, you see ten leechers with a hundred posts each. You don't instinctively think leechers can take much content, but they're already doing it.

If you believe that a banned leecher's first plan is not to create a new account, you are lying to yourself.
It's a cat and mouse game: you kick a leecher, they sneak back in with a new account in ten minutes.

Leechers who can't afford to purchase an upgrade or aren't able to contribute with something are a resource. They represent freemium users, they generate site traffic, they see ads, they may stumble upon marketplace threads and purchase something from there, they keep the leak forums alive. The more time they spend on the site, the more the site becomes valuable to them, and the higher the chance is to purchase an upgrade for those who can afford it.

The problem is that Cracked's current effort is not to convert freemium users to premium, but to try to keep freemium users away from the site. If you don't see this as a problem, you don't value site traffic enough, and I'll give you an analogy that might help: it's as if Spotify banned 120+ million freemium users because they didn't purchase an upgrade before listening to 100 songs.

They don't. They work on software upgrades for everyone and benefits for the premium plans. Their efforts go into making premium plans as convenient as possible, without limiting you to three songs of the same genre a day, or ten songs a day (a reference to our 3 and 10 posts limits), because it's a feature that would make using Spotify frustrating. Yet, they have a conversion ratio of ~50%, which means that for every 100 new registered users, 50 become premium.

This is the meaning of my suggestion. Shift Cracked's interest from rejecting leechers to valuing them as freemium users because they're potential customers and not just a number.

[1.848]

Yea you do make a fair point but its a business, this is how cto's business model is, this is how it runs, you and i might not agree with it but it will continue to exist like the 100s of other things in our lives which are unfair, we are just opinions and its always greed that puts them 3 steps back when they think they are 2 steps ahead. We can hope for a better version of almost everything but unless 100% commit to actually changing it, it will continue to be the same, sadly.

@emptyyy is my dad | http://bottersheaven.xyz

[4.051]

Disclaimer: If you can't read more than 20 sentences without passing out please just go crack PayPal or whatever the fuck you do.

Leechers are a thorny issue, or are they?
Let's start with a premise: at the heart of Cracked is piracy. What do you do when you can't or don't want to pay for a digital content? You pirate it.
Everything that happens on Cracked is based on the intention of spending less, or nothing at all, for a product or service offered by someone.

I want to make another analogy with piracy. In many European countries, piracy is illegal, but it is not prosecuted as a crime because someone who pirates a digital media does not have the economic means to pay for it or does not intend to pay for it, so they would not take advantage of it unless it got pirated.

The same goes for leechers. Leechers are piracy within piracy: they are unable or unwilling to pay for something, so they come to Cracked, which serves this purpose and is the reason for its success, to get it. However, the problem arises when Cracked imposes itself on them by saying: if you don't contribute by publishing content or buying an upgrade, you are the scum of society and get permanently banned.

A small digression: notice how warez doesn't work this way. Being a leecher has no consequence because you can't be restricted from torrenting something, and you aren't considered a leecher if you distribute content to at least one other person (the >1.000 ratio rule). On Cracked, since seeding is not possible, you have to come up with your original content, which is like saying: if you pirate a movie, go to a cinema with a camera to bootleg a film yourself. It doesn't make much sense since you pirate a movie because you can't access it yourself.

The never-ending leeching bans would work were it not for the fact that to ban evade, you only need a new email and IP address.
The automatic ban has no advantage other than increasing the count of registered users, counter that can be altered at will.

My suggestion is to stop banning leechers, because it is a measure that does not bring any benefit, and to remove the posting limits entirely. Before anyone starts screaming, "but Mastiff, if you don't ban leechers, they will take over the site, leech everything, enslave our contributors and fuck their wives!"... it's already happening, but we are still here, and people who enjoy the community or the marketplace still upgrade.

Where do you think most of the 2.65M users come from? Who posted 13.77M posts?
There are 30 times more posts than threads. Just banning leechers doesn't work.

We know the primary purpose of continuously banning leechers is to hope that they sign up again, pretend not to be banned leechers, upgrade (which ultmately benefits one person, not the community itself), and continue leeching silently, but it's clear by reading the statistics that it's not working. Let's look at two statistics: the average active users are 0.18% of overall users, and the average active upgraded users are even lower. We're talking about a number with many 0s.

These numbers tell us that people who sign up to take something and leave do not care about the community or upgrades, and they could not care less about bans. But even if they did, why would a ban-evading leecher upgrade knowing that multi-accounting is against the rules, that their favorite leaker will repost stuff posted on Cracked on Telegram or Eternia, that lots of users intentionally post garbage content with clickbait titles?

Whether you like it or not, those who do not intend to pay will not pay, and you will not be able to keep them out of the site, but they can at least change their mind if they engage with the community or plan to stay on the site for a long time. If you want to convert users into customers, you have to work on the site's quality (meaning that this suggestion won't change everything, but it could be a first step) and not kick your potential customers off the site. It's a successful business model if you have something to offer, and plenty of companies offer free plans that don't entirely ban their customers for not paying within a reasonable time frame.

nvm nothing

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[2]

I really like your view on this. I am new to this forum, and have not had much experience yet, but when I first read that that there is a "No leeching rule" I was confused. I don't truly see what this rule helps.

[1.756]

Yea you do make a fair point but its a business, this is how cto's business model is, this is how it runs, you and i might not agree with it but it will continue to exist like the 100s of other things in our lives which are unfair, we are just opinions and its always greed that puts them 3 steps back when they think they are 2 steps ahead. We can hope for a better version of almost everything but unless 100% commit to actually changing it, it will continue to be the same, sadly.

"Unfair life events" are entirely unrelated to this argument. You talk like Cracked is managed by celestial entities fluctuating in the cosmos.
You cannot control everything in your life; you can control the basic mechanisms of an online forum.

Freemium to premium is already part of Cracked's business model, or you would not be able to join the site as a regular user. The issue - which of course, is my opinion, but it's supported by statistics and based on companies already adopting it - is that the attempt Cracked does to convert freemiums to premiums is consistently throwing them out of the site and making it a living hell for those freemium who haven't yet met the number of posts required to get permanently banned.

If Spotify banned you every 50 songs, Discord every 50 messages, Grammarly every 50 sentences, YouTube every 50 videos, would you still enjoy these services the same way, and would getting banned every week make you more inclined to purchase a subscription?

[1.848]

Yea you do make a fair point but its a business, this is how cto's business model is, this is how it runs, you and i might not agree with it but it will continue to exist like the 100s of other things in our lives which are unfair, we are just opinions and its always greed that puts them 3 steps back when they think they are 2 steps ahead. We can hope for a better version of almost everything but unless 100% commit to actually changing it, it will continue to be the same, sadly.

"Unfair life events" are entirely unrelated to this argument. You talk like Cracked is managed by celestial entities fluctuating in the cosmos.
You cannot control everything in your life; you can control the basic mechanisms of an online forum.

Freemium to premium is already part of Cracked's business model, or you would not be able to join the site as a regular user. The issue - which of course, is my opinion, but it's supported by statistics and based on companies already adopting it - is that the attempt Cracked does to convert freemiums to premiums is consistently throwing them out of the site and making it a living hell for those freemium who haven't yet met the number of posts required to get permanently banned.

If Spotify banned you every 50 songs, Discord every 50 messages, Grammarly every 50 sentences, YouTube every 50 videos, would you still enjoy these services the same way, and would getting banned every week make you more inclined to purchase a subscription?

didnt mean "unfair life events" but meant most big corp that do the same thing, alot of people might know about it but cant really do anything about it, end of the day its just about profit for most of the same businesses / companies.

Yes its basically frustrating the average user into paying or getting off the platform, and i agree it does need to be changed even if its a small change to benefit the free tier users.

people that underwent that would either buy or get off the platform because of the frustration, but cto is this way because most other forums of this nature are the same.

I would say if cto was more free tier friendly, i doubt it would affect sales, might actually boost it. They could always do a test run, see the results maybe?

@emptyyy is my dad | http://bottersheaven.xyz

[1.756]

Bump.