A read cash well wisher @Mictorrani published an article which underlines the negative effects of excessively meaningless giveaway contests and sponsorship offers on our beloved platform - read.cash.
He ended it with a thought provoking question:
Is this really the Read.Cash you want?
Read the article here - Sponsorships and Giveaways: Stop a Moment and Look at What You are Doing!
Read.cash nowadays is clogged with posts about giveaways and offered or requested sponsorships. It has gone so far that it is hard to find anything to read. The notifications are clogged with this as well. This is no longer a place for reading and writing, it has become a kindergarten where overgrown children play games to try to snatch extra points without effort.
Agreed. The homepage and notification is a mess with promoted sponsorship and giveaway posts. I'm glad someone finally said something about it.
Do I have the right to agree?
Honestly, I have hosted and participated in giveaway contests. I am sad, I feel like I don't have the right to agree to his words.
I joined the platform with the wrong mindset - to make money. On realizing that the normal daily activities; posting articles, reading and commenting, barely got me $1 in my first week, I was overwhelmed with disappointment.
On my give up moment, a friend suggested ways to earn more; participating in giveaways, building my subscribers base through giveaway contests which will in turn increase users engagement on my article. I took his advice, I jumped into the giveaway train. I have hosted and participated in a few giveaways. Though my daily earning increased - the change was not significant.
As days went by, I read more articles and met more users, I began to find more fun on the platform. Then I met @Hanzell @OverThinker @wakeupkitty @heartbeat1515 and others whose advice and moral support is helping guide my path and now my perspective is taking a new shape.
Someone also share this with me:
Read cash can't take over your pay job, don't come here for only the money, what they offer is change to encourage writing!
Though read cash can't take over my pay job - as I am unemployed at the moment, it can't replace the need for one. I realized that the earning is more of a bonus; an incentive to encourage publishing of good contents and positive user engagement.
There is need to guide the newbies on the right part.
These posts fill my notifications and drown genuine notifications, which are easily missed in the sheer amount of posts about giveaways.
Despite the growing number of distracting giveaways, there are some contest that actually encourages quality articles. But giveaways are just asking for subscription and participants are asked to make a post about the giveaway, a way of promoting it to reach more users. This type of giveaway contest is consuming the platform and need to be checked.
Imagine 50% of users you are subscribed to participating, each making a post about the giveaway. There will be more notifications of giveaways which drown genuine notifications of quality and read worthy articles.
Is this really the Read.Cash you want?
No. This is not a call to put an end to giveaways and contests. But a call to take a moment and look at what we are doing to this platform.
This is not for people who are putting an effort to make this platform better through writing contests. But for as many as those who are misusing it; seeing it as a way to get subscribers and comments, at the end encouraging spamming and poor quality contents; unintentionally.
My giveaway
Contests, if not misused, can be a good way to encourage writers to write more and better. There's no harm in contests as long as it entails posting quality contents and encourages positive activities and such from users. But then it really does get tiring to see giveaway or sponsorship posts over and over again.
There is need for us to be more responsible and contribute to the positive growth of this platform by discouraging useless posts and spamming, and encouraging good contents & positive user engagement.
We are read.cash, her rise to greatness and fall is in our hands. Let's make her a better place.
Yes we can, and it begins with you and I!
My action: I will end my active giveaway today. Though I will host contests in future, it will be less often and more refined and suited for the positive growth of read cash.
How about you?
Thanks for sharing your reaction and nice decision friend for your upcoming contest:)