First, I would disagree with the idea that this website is becoming a "joke." Unsurprisingly, the quality of our content has increased dramatically after pulling the payment system.

Second, this was not a "business 101 idea to make a quick buck." We are in it for the long haul.  I'm going to admit something that the site has not been able to admit so far: we have lost an enormous amount on this website so far, both on hosting, in payouts, and wages we give our engineers. Yes, this is a business, but no, we didn't do it to rip someone off... we know that our success depends on people actually liking the things they find on thwe wbesite.

Third, we are still trying to build a comprehensive reform. Understand that this is incredibly difficult--almost as hard as building the website itself. It may take months. Just planning it has proved near impossible. We need to be a lot smarter in the design this time around, so that we can both pay our users without having the website be stampeded with crap.

Best,

Jake