Hello, my little sunflowers! Today, I'm going to be talking about Wattpad 's  most recent update: The NextBeta Coin Something-or-Another. I don't like it. At all. What am I supposed to do with it? Yes, I've read the article that talks about it (here's the link here if you haven't read it: https://nextbeta.wattpad.com/ ), but I still don't understand what it does.

First off, I agree with many of the Wattpadders against the new addition. I highly disagree with this (with this new coin thingy). Considering many authors on here are fanfiction writers, I don't think people can "donate" money to their favorite author without it breaking some copyright law or another.

Though, I'm thinking that this new feature is for premium members only. It doesn't make sense to give this to people who aren't premium members.

Another thing: Apparently, Wattpad is trying this out because of requests from members to make this site be "a way to support writers directly on Wattpad".

I'm sorry, but Wattpad should not be a way to be supported from. There's too much junk in this site for even our own stories to get found. I'd much rather get supported through other means - especially Amazon, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Plus, a lot of Wattpadders are teens or college folk who have little-to-no money to spend to read our stuff. Even if this was just a donating thing and not a have-to thing, this "Coin Generator" tool, as I'm dubbing it, shouldn't be used. A lot of members are asking for this as a way to support writers on here directly. I'm sorry, but there's a thing called Patreon, people! If you're wanting support, then put your Patreon link on your profile summary so that people can click on it to support you if they like your works. Having this coin gadget thingy will make me and others feel like we HAVE to click on it or feel guilty when we can't because we can't cough up the dough. I, for one, don't have money period. So I can't support people even if I wanted to. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat as well due to college or school or activities or just being the fact that you're not old enough to have an income yet.

Does anyone else feel this way? Or am I preaching to the choir?

Also, there isn't any need for Wattpad to do this. We've got Patreon and other methods to earn support and income. We've also got Amazon, eBay, Publishing Companies, and several other methods. Also, you're not allowed to "sell" your books on here if you're selling them somewhere else (aka Wattpad) -- especially if it's Amazon; Amazon is very particular about that. We've also got Pinterest and Facebook. We don't need Wattpad to add to the list. Also, Pinterest, Facebook, and FictionPress is much more organized and simpler than Wattpad is.

Writers and readers -- writers especially -- don't consider Wattpad to be ideal to post their drafts and get quality critique from other writers. Every writer class I look from several different writers discouraged or just flat-out left out Wattpad as a dependable site -- same with Tumblr. It's so easy to learn bad habits on here and I'm beginning to notice that. So if I post any of my original works on here, they'll be rough drafts so that people can read them and get them interested in them enough to buy them if they so wish. But any final drafts I finish will go to Amazon and others to get published.

But long-story-short, I'm with you on this and I highly disagree with this tool. Plus it looks funky. I came here to socialize and write for "fun" (basically relearning and bringing back my love for it) not to make money from this.

(If I'm misunderstanding or have any misinformation, then please correct me.)

I hope I'm speaking for many Wattpadders on here. If you are one of those who like this "coin" something-or-another, then ignore my rant. I just have a bad feeling in my gizzard that this isn't going to end well and will lead us down a wrong path.

Thank you for reading this, my friends and loyal followers. I hope you have a splendid and productive week! For those of you doing NaNoWriMo, best of luck, and I hope to see you guys on the other side.

Stay Sunny!

- Sunshine Boy

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Word Count: 750 words

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Date Written 11/14/18

Date Published: 01/01/19