deviantART loves you

We recently made a change to Profile Pages that resulted in community discussion regarding the future of deviantART and would like to take a few moments to clarify some of your concerns.

Profile Pages now provide details in regards to the type of membership a deviant has and in some cases, how a membership upgrade was received.  For example, Pages either say 'Needs Premium Membership' or '[Length of time] Premium Membership' (7 Month Premium Membership, 3 Week Premium Membership, and so on).  

Deviants who choose to donate/give Premium Memberships to other deviants have the option to display their usernames on the recipient's Profile Pages (1 Month Premium Membershop: Given by $Heidi) -- or they can now give Premium Memberships completely anonymously by checking '[ ] I want to give this gift totally anonymously' during the purchase process.

Just like many of you link to your own Print stores in signatures or deviation comments, we want to remind visitors that Premium Memberships maximize their deviantART experience.  Premium Memberships allow deviants to browse the site with no advertisements, view up to 120 deviations per page, request Critique on artwork, access Gallery Stats, customize journals with Journal Skins, participate in and take advantage of Premium Membership contests and promotions, beta test upcoming features, and much more.  Clearly we're biased, but yes, we do believe that you need a Premium Membership to best maximize your deviantART experience.   

NEEDS, IN TERMS OF SUSTAINING THE COMMUNITY

DeviantART's 9th birthday is just around the corner -- that's over 3000 days of being on the Interwebs, providing a home for your art and giving you the ability to view art of all genres.  Moving forward, we want to ensure that deviantART continues to provide quality features and support -- staying online and servicing the requests from millions of deviants goes without saying.  It not only costs money to create and release new features, it also costs money to maintain and upgrade past releases.  And remember, the money deviantART earns from Premium Memberships is money that goes back into the site -- like allowing free Portfolios to all.  

SUPPORTING ARTISTS AND SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY

The art of giving is something that's highly prevalent in our community.  Time after time, deviants rally to show support for friends who are experiencing hardship or require some kind of financial support.  Similarly, deviants also support each other when it comes to the arts -- buying prints, requesting commissioned pieces, etc.  In regards to gifting Premium Memberships, we feel this type of community spirit deserves recognition and we're happy to offer deviants the opportunity to have their names associated with artists they choose to support.  In supporting your favorite artist(s), you're also supporting the community -- bandwidth fees, server/hardware upgrades, prizes for contests, tech releases, and so on.

IT'S ALL STILL HERE

Every artist on deviantART has the ability to upload unlimited deviations, write unlimited comments, unlimited journals, create chatrooms, enter contests, and maintain a beautiful portfolio -- all for the low, low price of free.

THE MYTHS

1. deviantART will not close accounts just because someone doesn't have a Premium Membership
2. See #1

YOU GUYS ARE JUST A BUNCH OF CORPORATE LLAMAS

If that's what you choose to believe, there's probably not a whole lot we could say to make you think otherwise.  DeviantART is the largest online art community in the world and no one knows that more than us.  No change is implemented on the site without contemplation and review.  Sometimes the changes we make go over well and other times not so much, but at the end of the day we live and breathe deviantART just like every other deviant and have good intentions behind our actions.  For those who believe that we've lost our community focus, stay tuned and see what's to come.  Feedback from surveys, World Tour events, and general community response will guide our way.  And for those who say they've heard it all before, a little faith in a site that's going on its 9 year would be nice.  Otherwise, feel free to scorn us in your journal.

deviantART loves you