To my knowledge, you don't see the ads if you are subscribed. So if you don't pay for the service you get to see the ads.
Someone has to pay for the non subscribers to function on here, that is why DA sells advertising.

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Don't take life too seriously... Nobody comes out of it alive, anyway!

Ya, the subscribed members don't see the adds. I would trade the "Gallery and fav. organization" for not having the ads in my gallery. It really seems that you have to be subscribed, to have use the site well. They do need to make money I just wonder if there were better or different ways. The thing that bugs me is when I send people (non DA members) to may page to look at my art. I have that big (oven ugly) add it there. So I am going to have to buy a subscription for that account >< I just want to see what other people think about the new changes more then anything.

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=NuitariK Photography and Graphic Design

~KymoriK Fine art and Anime/Manga

Well, you could post question this to $lolly, but it's fairly obvious that DA sells Ad space. Let's put the shoe on the other foot for a moment, Let's say we have a full featured DA for everyone, and there are no ads anywhere. But people still subscribed. Then wouldn't you be saying "DA is unfair, because I pay for the service, but I don't get any benefit for my money?!". There are around a 100 paid employees of DA that we don't see day to day. There are servers, hard drives, switching hardware, and software development. These employees have to be paid, overhead, and hardware. Of course, DA is Incorporated, I'm only assuming this, but I suspect there are stockholders that would appreciate a return on their investment through dividends on their stock.
Please don't misunderstand, I do understand what you are saying. The problem is, every page that a visitor goes to on DA is an "exposure" a company that sells ads, sells on the basis of "exposures". DA can be used for selling your works to non-DA visitors, In most cases, those visitors that actually purchase something is very small. So, the only way DA makes anything off of those visitors is to show them ads that companies pay for.
It should not be construed that they are being "unfair". I think that's a bit harsh. If you truly realize that they must make money, then maybe you have an idea as to where they could make this money from, other than selling the ad space. Possibly charging everyone on DA, $50 per year?.............. I don't think so. From what I understand the majority of DA members are non subscribers. So it would probably be more like charging $100 per year, and for what? Nothing, because in our example above, therre would be no ads.

I suppose in a perfect world, we would not have to pay for anything, and we would get everything.


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Don't take life too seriously... Nobody comes out of it alive, anyway!

truly, I'm just asking for feedback from DA members of all kinds to see what they think about all the changes. I have not yet written my second part of the journal so you are saying exactly what I already think. My big thing is that I would have liked them to not have given the folder option to all members therefore not putting the ads in the gallery. Have you seen them. It takes up a lot of room and I really wish they would have some kind of quality control on what goes up in though adds. For some of it is distracting from that art. I think the ads are fine on the fav. section.

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=NuitariK Photography and Graphic Design

~KymoriK Fine art and Anime/Manga

I understand exactly what you are saying, but that's the purpose of ads, to distract you enough to read them. It's part of the reason I pay for the service, I don't have to look at them!

One other point here, I have my own website, I do not allow advertising on it, for that very reason, but I have no desire to be an "Internet Baron" either!

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Don't take life too seriously... Nobody comes out of it alive, anyway!

indeed

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=NuitariK Photography and Graphic Design

~KymoriK Fine art and Anime/Manga

Honestly, I'm hearing people ranting about all this, but I have yet to see what it is. I've yet to notice any changes around DA except the "collections" thing, which I don't understand either. So what exactly has changed? The front page looks the same to me and the search engine looks the same to me; I'm confuzzled

Well there are three main changes. Read this [link] Its about the new way they have done popular sections. Have you noticed the stupid stuff thats been up there? Some of it is really bad, yet in poplar. Also the other thing is the new folders in the gallery and fav section. For non-subscribed they get it to but with ugly ads in them ><

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=NuitariK Photography and Graphic Design

~KymoriK Fine art and Anime/Manga

Bah, no matter what way they do it, whatever on the front page is going to be "unfair". Good artists normally got up, and they deserved it; but the rest who used to get up were more people that knew how to suck up than how to draw or what-not. Plus a lot of photography got up, which is an area where opinion on how good it is can alter greatly (mostly the daily deviations I'm talking about). This won't be any different; just more stuff that you don't think should be there showing up. They're just trying to give suckers like me the chance to get noticed though, so I can't really blast them for that; even if the way they're doing it sucks.

The folders in the galleries have been around for awhile; I've already organized all that stuff. No flaws there