Economy of Sbenny forums

[pigcanswim]

1. What's the actual purpose of this SB forum?

The purpose of this forum is let everyone understand nothing in this world is free, but at the same time it doesn't mean you have to pay for it. You can find other modding communities with paywalls such as "vip only" content which can only be unlocked with a purchase. We do have a vip only content here too as well, it's true, but the difference is that we don't force users to pay for it. Instead, we offer them a way to get it for free, simply by understanding the way a forum should work: give help and get help.

People nowadays are so used to file hosting sites they call "forums" which are nothing more than a collection of public download links to get everything they want in a couple minutes and then leave. Well, Sbenny.com isn't like that and never will be. We're not here to give everything to everyone, we're here to exchange information with others which is the only way to grow, learn and help each other.



2. Is it to recognize modders?

No, it's to recognize people willing to help others, and not "casual people" who just want a download link and leave. We're here for those who want to stay here, not for those who just visit a page and never come back.



3. Is it so modders can get a platform to earn money for their works?

No, but at the same time, why not? You're focusing your attention to modders, but on this community everyone has a chance to get SB Points as we introduce new ways to get SB Points nearly every week (such as the Smartphone Reviews section, open to literally everyone on this planet), so what would be wrong in having these people get a compensation for their work? We recently introduced a way for people to sell their SB Points, and I don't see why this would be a bad thing.



4. Or is this a place where modders get together to have fun by sharing their works?

If your definition of having fun is about sharing a public link of their mod and find a thousand sites with the same mod with stolen credits, then I'm sure you can find such sites easily on google. Having fun together doesn't mean offering a download link to a casual person who will leave after downloading your mod without even thanking you. Having fun means being part of our wonderful family and enjoy our time together. And that's already happening on here, just take the forum chat as an example, you can't find anything close to that elsewhere.



5. In a public forum it's impossible to expect everyone to contribute to a thread which in turn makes it impossible for casual people aka lurkers to actually get the things they want.

Who said that? First of all, public forum doesn't mean forum for lurkers. Secondly, I'm not expecting everyone to contribute to this forum, the world is full of lazy people but as we spend a lot of time to make something we share on here, why would we willing to give it out to everyone for nothing? Unlike the "real world", here we don't ask for money, instead we ask for being part of our family and help each other.


6. The only way for casual players can get what they need is through daily log in and try to earn some SBCash.

And that's why we offer countless ways to earn SB Points. The daily login bonus was meant for people to login and stay with us, post something or even something as simple as saying "hello" in the chat, but it easily turned into a sneaky way to open the forum tab and immediately close it, with the only purpose of getting a few SB Points, that's the reason of the changes we did.


Now I could keep answering to every question you're making, @pigcanswim but you didn't login anymore after 10th December, so I doubt it's worth writing this message furthermore as there are very low chances you'll read what I'm typing, as you probably surrended and, driven by your laziness, you decided to give up, like most lazy people nowadays are used to do.

1. It's totally understandable on your part that nothing is free in this world. My point is, this should be a casual community. Free mods are pretty much available everywhere. It's just the targeted mods that may not be available elsewhere. To justify my argument, I noted in my previous posts that it's impossible for someone to provide help to another who has already received help therefore it will not work out and will only lead to posts that looks almost like spams.

2. Sure, but the fact and reality is there's can only be a limited number of requests in ratio to the number of people capable of giving help. which as stated in my previous posts. being a modding community the most significant help that get requested are likely to be modding questions, which obviously is impossible for casual people to take part and by doing so, limits this community to a elite only forum where 80% of the participants are modders. Are you perhaps attempting to make this community a Modder only?

3. There's typically only 2 types of people here, lurkers aka causals or modders. How do a casual get enough to be able to have a mod game and how long will it takes? A normal person will only have a phone. 2 for developers. 3 for fanatics. How many reviews can a person put up and how much SBCash can he get or rather, how many games can he unlock? I'm not against compensation for Mods, I have stated that it would be great to have the mod to upload the files to pay-per-download sites. This provide a larger incentive to content creators instead. Selling SBCash is just solidifying the fact that this forum will turns into a premium forum.

4. Your statement is as though forcing participation will make some one really thanks you for the mod. That's negative thinking don't you think? How about taking the amount of downloads that your content can fetch is the amount of thanks you get for providing the content? If its unwanted content, who in their right mind will even download it?

5. I won't say there are no lazy people but there should be a handful of people who are forced by circumstances? If forcing participation for weeks to months just to get a Mod unlocked, its highly unlikely anyone will do it. It's the amount of effort that's required is too much to the gains that one can receive. Obviously this have nothing to do with laziness or otherwise. Infact a real lazy person will just buy SBCash for unlocks.

6. It does not change anything. Your system itself is flawed. You implemented a flawed system on a abusive community looking for loopholes and ways to bypass the weak security. Look at your vip, It has been discontinued since the last time I came in with the reason I stated in my previous posts with something similiar.

Firstly, the reason I left was due to commitment on life itself. I'm just a casual player which I had stated in my first post. What I wish for is a community that is much more giving. I am also grateful to the fact that Modders are taking their time and effort making all this however making ur content restricted is only making it much more valuable for people to pirate it for monetary gains outside of this forum.

Secondly, it took you a month and after I left for a while to reply in a extensive post and labeling me as lazy. Is it to prove that you are winning in this argument? I do not know. I'm commenting on the flawed system that you have and that you can change to make it better but instead I only see you flaming me. Thats fine.

How you @Sbenny will proceed I do not know. Maybe it will take you another month to reply and after commitments in life comes to me again. Maybe you will just delete this post all together.

Honestly though, I have yet to unlock any games yet if I remember correctly, please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just here to enjoy the system and features you provided with SBCash. Reason being the cost to unlock the mod is too great for a game that I will just play for 30 minutes and uninstall. It's probably much more fun to just have features unlock instead.

 

[Mark A]

You have been gone for a long time; A new and easy way to earn free SB Points was added:

Top The Sbenny App Leaderboard (09/03 - 13/03)

HOW IT WILL WORK: • The event will run for 5 days. (09/03/2020 - 13/03/2020) • Players will compete to be 1st, 2nd and 3rd on Speed Pinball. • The leaderboard has been reset to give everyone a fair chance. • Winners will be announced on Saturday, 14th and prizes awarded. • In the event of a tie...

forum.sbenny.com

I think this is the 4th leaderboard contest already, and once this one ends another leader board contest will replace it.

I rather not comment on your latest post as it's addressed to 1 specific person.

 

[Sbenny]

This isn't a casual forum nor a community for elite people as you said, and you're not in the position to say there are flaws in the system, which is the result of 4 years of continuous improvements. If you spent the same time to write these post to do something to actually help others instead of judging in the hope I'll make it easier for you and others to get something from this community, which I'm afraid, you're totally wrong about it, you'd certainly would've gotten the mod you want, without the need of complaining for the fact this community didn't turn into a file hosting site like all the 'sites claiming they're communities' around the web. This is Sbenny.com, this is our community and it's not a file hosting site, and never will be.

 

[Joannesp]

Hhm it is a confusing one but you get used to it as @Sbenny and other staff members say they take all of their time to mod the games we love. I know some games require 9 thousand SB Points but it is worth it.

 

[DarthVoda]

@pigcanswim As @Sbenny mentioned, you have not been around here since the site's inception, back in 2015 (or was it 2014?? Sorry for not researching accurate info). You don't really need to have been around that long, to know how dynamic and fluid this site has been.Things very rarely stay the same here, because, just as in the outside world (outside of this site, naturally), that which remains stagnant must perish. Life yearns for freshness, something new, something exciting, or just something different. All the other resources out there for getting the content that's provided FREE OF CHARGE here are case studies of stagnation. They may change the UI or format of how the site looks, but they are always the same in how they operate (and with very little variance regarding the content they produce). Now, I am new enough to this scene to recall the giddiness I had felt, when I first discovered the fact that people all over the world find ways to manipulate exploits in Games and apps, and the heady high that I experienced when I found the first these typical file-sharing sites, in which one could find and download any and everything they desired in anywhere between 5 min to one hour. We all used to put up with the hassle of these sites, whose reliance upon aggressively intrusive adverts created a bit of an endurance contest: how many pop-ups and redirects will be tolerated by the average consumer before they get the goods they are after? We also persevered over malicious viruses, adware, ransomware, and malware; and a neverending wealth of apks that turned out to be DOA, despite the nerve-wracking effort to get it.

Those other spots still have those issues. This is the only virtual space that doesn't. This point gets after the answer to the first question you posed: what is the purpose of this site? It is the only resource throughout the entire internet (which, last checked, an ever-widening and vast expanse, the size of which cannot even be fathomed by the human mind; in other words, really very big), that is devoid of such annoying and even harmful tactics. The admin here are able to maintain such a sanctuary by not being beholden upon revenue that is generated from ads.In fact, this community is totally self sufficient and efficacious by covering what costs exist for keeping this site running comes directly and exclusively from member donations and other monetary investments (and, in the first few fledgling weeks and months, it was mainly @Sbenny that funded this project of his out of his own pocket; of course, that was long before SB Points system, and the only thing up for purchase was VIP membership).

I know that I'm just parroting what's mostly already been highlighted in previous posts, but this website remains free for anyone who wants to visit or even become a member. However, while membership has no monetary price or value assessed to it, there are certain requirements to maintaining such status, here. None of these oblige a member pay any actual funds, but they generally do necessitate a commitment to keeping this place as wonderfully supportive and refreshingly dynamic as possible. There are a long list of the myriad ways that that goal can be accomplished, and the vast majority of them require only minimal efforts. The quickest and easiest used to be the daily login reward. Another lucrative method is to post a video of playing one of the mods in the YouTube section. That action alone will get you more than the base rate offered for the releasing of a game/app. So, with such a long and varied list of ways to earn (which, in and of itself, is constantly growing and evolving, thanks to members' suggestions), there is never any need to purchase it. Just be active in the community. And, honestly, if you claim to be something other than a lazy person, why not just throw your full, wholehearted effort into doing just that? For lazy folk, I can see their objection to such a caveat. But if you're not that, then what is stopping you from giving this site the old college try? You might even discover that your argument here, in this thread, is baseless, your hypotheses incredible, and your own logic on this matter hopelessly flawed, itself.... or not. But, should you relent and give it an honest try, even if you ultimately decide against staying a member, you will have generated well over 300 SB Points, to be used however you like!

 

[AugresiV]

All I can say is: in my world (not the internet one), things ARE free, because I make it so, and I choose what FREE is. Maybe I'm just lucky, nor have I ever let any internet user define how my world, my reality, should be. Real life is real.

Also: I think the system in place is fine, but I'm also prioritizing what I need, more than just wastefully spending my points. I feel like the community is all-inclusive. I may not be a user with a million post counts, but I've been here long enough to feel a part of this online drama and get my internet hands dirty and type freely.

I don't do this for 'ecomony', and the VIP Area is there for when I do decide to deepen my participation; I like the work being done here. I love this community. SBenny is the first APK community which I've been a long-stay, and participated in.

I cannot control what other users on here think of the system, and for darn sure I don't take sides of complete strangers behind a screen. I just feel like the system has a stable structure, but it isn't tyrannical. Those who want to be a part of a community like this create their own recognition, and still reap the rewards

 

[DarthVoda]

All I can say is: in my world (not the internet one), things ARE free, because I make it so, and I choose what FREE is. Maybe I'm just lucky, nor have I ever let any internet user define how my world, my reality, should be. Real life is real[...]

[...]I don't do this for 'ecomony', and the VIP Area is there for when I do decide to deepen my participation;[...]

I honestly don't want to challenge your comment too much, as I admire your adamant demand to think critically and freely, as you observe the world around you. I think pure independence of thought being utilized while analyzing reality is commendable, and I'm a strong proponent for addressing such philosophic discourse thusly. That being said, do you not think it dangerous (maybe even hypocritical, though I hesitate to use that word, as I don't wish to come of as sounding adversarial), when you begin to differentiate your "personal reality" from the reality that we all agree upon as that which is real? Is that not the very definition of reality: it is what we can all agree that it is. There are no absolutes in this world, everything exists in shades of gray, I get that point. From that perspective, we all have our own subjective realities, which we mold as we go through life, and is shaped by our various experiences and cultures, etc. But those are better described as our personal opinions about reality, rather than what is substantively real and what is not. Do you consent to the existence of an objective reality; one in which we are all bound to acknowledge as what is truly and accurately real, one without shifting parameters or perspectives. For example, and with very few exceptions, we all learn from a young age that getting too close to fire or heated material causes instant and sharp pain, and our reaction to it is equally and inescapably universal: we will always retract the burnt appendage, usually with a sharp, yet soft gasp or shriek, or a whimper (even if one doesn't emit any audible sound, it can still be heard in their mind). This is a reality that cannot be challenged, wouldn't you agree? And there are many more just like it, which I won't bother to list here, since this comment is already torturously lengthy and I'm getting bored writing about it (so, naturally, everyone that got this far must be sick of reading it by now, as well). But these are the things that none of us get to pick and choose to believe as real - they just are.

Regarding VIP membership, not sure if you're aware but that feature has been discontinued (for new memberships) for a while now, due to certain undesirables taking advantage of such unfiltered access to the most premium content here, essentially stealing it by throwing it up on competitor's sites while claiming it was their own work. I am particularly dismayed at this tragic turn of events, since I enjoyed VIP status for one year, afterwhich I had planned to purchase lifetime membership. Couldn't afford it at the time and when I finally could, came to find out that all new memberships are indefinitely pending, with no vision of reopening anytime soon (as far as I know). When I did have VIP privileges, there was no prices of SB Points associated with unlocking VIP mods, back then you had to buy the access to them, it was the only way. I wish we could return to those days, or at least a hybrid system. Because currently having to pay the astronomical costs to unlock any VIP mod, including new updates of previously unlocked content at the same high cost, is sort of untenable for the average member, like myself. I kick myself every time I am reminded of how close I was to sustaining my unfettered access to the golden works of art that are the premium mods, knowing that such privilege may be locked away forever....(I'm doing it right now..., and it hurts, a lot).

 

[Newusername1367th]

Why dont we get some add rolls or something i.e generic ones that are family friendly and we get 5to10 s bucks or something for a 30 second vid lots of games do it nowadays
Also since we cant really duplicate reviews and stuff like that iy really does limit people.

Post automatically merged: Apr 12, 2020

Or even basic maths questions limited to 5 times perday or something just to speed it up, one more thing is not every1 has something unique to comment

 

[Daelan]

Modders here spend a lot of their time making content we will enjoy as users, and they get SB Points in exchange. Getting SB Points due to being an active member of the forum is fair, just like paying for it if you can't be active, what isn't fair is expecting people to put hours and hours of their time to make something in exchange for nothing, especially when its mods will probably be stolen by other sites to leech from

 

[Mayourii]

Dear thread starter,
In other site where you can download game for "free" they actually put a lot of back link and referral link to ads (sometimes include scam or virus on your downloaded apps) that's how they generate money.
Here, I believe sbenny provide a clean mods, therefore he created system for us to follow