Yeah, I know Wattpad is a writing website, and you're supposed to post stories, but I am realizing that I am maybe not Wattpad's target writer.
Look, I'm not expecting to make thousands of reads here, or be a Wattpad Creator or anything but when I look at the website ten years ago compared to today, Wattpad WAS for creators before it sold out.
There were plenty of niches that were promoted past the stereotypical ones that they want now, and the Wattpad Originals. I just think that Wattpad is all about the money and the tropes, and not so much about thinking outside of the box.
Yes, I know that Teen Fic has always been popular here, and Mafia stuff but all the focus seems to be on that now, and not on nuturing writers outside of those stories. And the Original Stories aren't always better than the stories that aren't promoted and are hidden under layers of market saturation.
The ranking systems are messed up. They have been since they started using tags as rankings instead of categories, in 2018 and maybe before that. No one knows how anything works anymore.
And the home page reccomendations are messed up as well. They aren't reccomending me anything unique or new. Just mainly paid stories, fanfic (of fandoms I know nothing about) and popular stories. They need to bring back Undiscovered Gems or something to notice upcoming writers.
Wattpad has changed too much from the Wattpad I knew back then. It's become a shell of its former self, and the lack of social features isn't helping at all. You can't see anything on a newsfeed, talk in DMs or go to the forums.
You have to message them somewhere else most of the time, and it's taken away the core of what Wattpad was originally about. Not paying for ads. Not paying for half-baked Originals. A writing community, with free, open source stories.
I am still participating in ONC because that's one of the only fun things still here. I will post from time to time and answer replies, but I'm kinda semi-retired.