DomainBanana
Established Member
- Impact
- 1,028
Yesterday, SquadHelp launched a new policy of charging $1/submission to their premium marketplace, a marketplace that accepts only 9.79% of names. A major cash grab by SH, this escalates the cost of listing a single name on the SH marketplace to over $10.
Even before this damaging move, I found something about SquadHelp frustrating: the whole site is designed like a giant game.
There are ranking boards to show who's in the lead, sellers earn points for things like winning contests or getting a name approved, and now they've introduced SquadHelp coins to pay for submissions.
Gamifying business can be fun, if done well.
SquadHelp has gone to the extreme and gamified everything, two or three times over. All their points and coins and rules are dizzyingly convoluted and feel demeaning and manipulative. When it comes to listing domains and getting paid for my work, I want a clean, simple, professional, streamlined interface.
I don't want to play Candyland.
Yet, playing a childish boardgame is exactly what SH is making me do to participate in their brandable marketplace, and now this childish boardgame is ridiculously expensive to play.
I'm not interested in points or coins or rankings or any other childish, manipulative games.
I won't pay high prices and high commissions for the privilege of rolling the dice at brandable Candyland.
Even before this damaging move, I found something about SquadHelp frustrating: the whole site is designed like a giant game.
There are ranking boards to show who's in the lead, sellers earn points for things like winning contests or getting a name approved, and now they've introduced SquadHelp coins to pay for submissions.
Gamifying business can be fun, if done well.
SquadHelp has gone to the extreme and gamified everything, two or three times over. All their points and coins and rules are dizzyingly convoluted and feel demeaning and manipulative. When it comes to listing domains and getting paid for my work, I want a clean, simple, professional, streamlined interface.
I don't want to play Candyland.
Yet, playing a childish boardgame is exactly what SH is making me do to participate in their brandable marketplace, and now this childish boardgame is ridiculously expensive to play.
I'm not interested in points or coins or rankings or any other childish, manipulative games.
I won't pay high prices and high commissions for the privilege of rolling the dice at brandable Candyland.
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