The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a series of novels written by Douglas Adams. If you are not familiar with them, I invite you to read them. If you don't like to read, there is also a movie in which appears what I am about to say.
Imagine that the Earth is an experiment of a superior race. These beings wanted to unravel the secret of “Life, the Universe, and Everything” and built a machine called "Deep Thought" to provide the answer. After centuries of calculations and analysis, the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything turned out to be 42. The absurd answer made them realize that complexity could not be dealt with algorithms, but by observation. They created the Earth as a laboratory to observe and draw conclusions. In order not to intervene, they transformed themselves into rodents.
On the other hand, the dolphins (we all know) belong to an alien specie much more intelligent than human beings, who try to tell us that the planet will be destroyed because an intergalactic highway will pass through it. That is what they try to explain us with their jumps and pirouettes. We are not able to understand them, but as they amuse us, we give them some fish. When the day of the destruction comes, the dolphins leave the Earth in their spaceship while they say goodbye and sing: “so long and thanks for all the fish”.
And what does this have to do with noise.cash? Well, in three aspects.
1. The reward system
2. The affiliate program
3. The channels and the good users
The reward system, like "Deep Thought", is not able to value the quality and effort of the posts. It is not something I say. It is already a complaint of many people on the platform that publishes a lot and very well. But regardless of all this, it is an objective fact. Our “Deep Thought” does not value content, but users. It rewards or penalizes them as if they could not alternate various types of content or improve them. Aspects such as sharing a Wi-Fi or posting more or less per day affect the reward system. I insist: none of this has anything to do with quality and effort.
“Well, maybe those posts don't please people”, you will say.
Well, no. The likes have nothing to do with it either. There are posts that contradict the official noise guidelines with few likes that collect much more than elaborate and honest posts that follow the lines of the platform with lots of likes. “Deep Thought” is not able to understand the content of the posts, because if it were then it would not highly reward contents that contradict the official sources of the platform and encourage cheating to get more money or that organize prizes among followers to, more or less, buy them (this happens in many posts in Spanish).
"Deep Thought" gives us an answer as absurd as 42. It is as absurd to evaluate users as it is to the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Plagiarized posts, slightly altered, monetize more than true intellectual gems. We can even see how stolen content with fewer likes than the original, monetizes much more. Isn't it crazy? Ok. Quality = 42.
This is where an affiliate system comes implemented. A great idea to grow naturally but, without limitation of affiliates per users, it becomes a serious problem. If someone has a limitation (let's say 5 affiliates per account, just as an example) the growth is gradual and organic. And everyone will be in charge of inviting honest people and explaining how the platform works. Without limitation, a horde of users arrives who have been told in a miserable video that noise.cash is a "faucet where you publish anything and you earn easy money without effort". If any affiliate doesn't monetize, it doesn't matter. They have 1000 more.
Once again, quantity prevails over quality. Someone with enough affiliates can stop posting on noise.cash and take advantage of other people's effort and talent. But, indeed, we are not in a faucet of repetitive tasks that are done individually. Here we are talking about interactions and people's intellectual property and talent. This implies a different referral system than in a faucet. To give an example: when a user monetizes by stealing content, the one who invited him also monetizes. This, my friends, besides being disgusting, is a crime. OK. Affiliates = 42.
Finally, some channels are the guardians of post quality. Channels (and their moderators) have to deal with a wave of people who arrive like parachutists looking for easy money. And then they have to deal with their complaints and insults when they don't get their posts published or when they don't get an explanation on how to publish better. Moderators spend their time, their energy (electricity of their devices) and their money (data connection) in exchange for nothing. Well, in exchange for insults and complaints from parachutists. Should moderators try even harder to explain how to post to all these users who arrive in waves for the benefit of an unscrupulous person that invited them massively without even telling them that stealing content is wrong?
No wonder that already some Spanish channels have temporarily closed their doors (hopefully not forever) under so much pressure and comparative grievance. Do we, as channel moderators, control plagiarism, explain to users and help parachutist? Or do we enjoy the platform as users? There is no time for everything. If we don't have the right to enjoy as users, I'm afraid it's time to click on “delete channel”. By the way, still waiting for the chance to renoise a post from a channel…
OK. Not all channels do this work. Some of them are just hives of spam and plagiarism that publish everything without filters or controls… and those shit-post have high rewards anyway, so “well done people”: easy money and a medal for you. Thank you for destroying our efforts. So, Ok, Channels = 42.
I imagine a saturated and overwhelmed development team solving bugs, neutralizing attacks and implementing improvements. That's fine, no problem. At the end, they have fairly solved similar issues in the past. But it would be nice if they would consider the voice of users and channels as those pirouettes that alien dolphins do warning of a problem.
Sadly, some have already sung “So long, and thanks for all the fish”, depriving us of their great content and turning noise.cash into a much sadder place full of uninteresting banalities, unfair rewards and unscrupulous people who only think for their own profit. BTW they are people that will run out as quick as they came, when the money ends, but have expulsed other people that provided more valuable contents than a few Satoshis.
To all of this good "alien-dolphin" people, please, hold on. Wait for new improvements. Some of us like your stuff, even if "Deep Thought" doesn't.
This post is possible thanks to my sponsors. I invite you to take a look at their contents. Besides being excellent authors, they are excellent people.
The ultimate goal of the platform is to get the BCH to the largest number of people. And it seems that in the process they are not caring too much about what those people can contribute in content.
I admire what you do with the channel because most of them have become a disaster. And without the possibility of doing Renoise, for many, it isn't worth publishing on the channels.