Dear sir/ madam,
I know this most likely isn’t the correct email address to use but you have made it bloody difficult to find an appropriate one. You, Wattpad as a whole, have taken something I loved, something I used to build up anticipation to go on after school. Something I spend many nights staying up just to read the classic ‘one more chapter’. Something that allowed me to put my writings out there. Made me feel apart of something bigger.
I joined Wattpad three years ago, but the Wattpad I knew and loved then is no more. Just a mere ghost of itself. A mere memory in the brains of millions of people. As though it just another forgotten victim to the changing sands of time, another victim to the web that is the internet.
You are acting as a greedy spider sitting in the centre of a bunch of teenagers acting as the flies. Well I refuse to be one of those flies. How could you think that people would actually pay $60 a year for a fancy theme. For no ads. For our entire library available offline. For our freedom back. Honestly it makes me sick. Capitalism as a whole makes me sick. I don’t want a classic response which is 'We have families to feed",“This is our job”, or the very classic “People don’t have to pay”. However the main demographic of Wattpad are teenagers. My friend informed me today that throughout her four years of high school she had $3 and a taco bell coupon to her name. So how can you expect teenagers to just have $60 laying around.
You say yourselves that 'Wattpad Brand Solutions offers a full suite of advertising products to help brands build deep engagement with Millennial and Gen Z consumers’ and yes those are your exact words. I myself am a so called Gen Z, many of my friends are millennials. And all of us at some point have used Wattpad, whether it was to write or to just read, many of the fabulous works of writing on the site. Teenagers today are some of most influence people on the internet. Many have been pressured into things, such as sending nudes. And you pushing premium down our throats is just going to make those teenagers feel that they have to buy it.
So even though I have loved Wattpad for years. I am closing the chapter of my life including it. I will no longer be able to look at the site in the same child-like innocent light again. You have shattered that image of you in my eyes. The world doesn’t need more capitalism in it. And frankly I never would of expect this from you.
In past days I have been forcing myself to get used to Archive of our own, because that is where I will end up. On a site that frankly in my opinion is not one that is not likely to fuck over its users.
I say good day to you. Good day to you. May I never have to go through this again. Close the door on your way out.
Yours Faithfully
A very annoyed teenager
