If you don’t know the eponymous song, I recommend listening to the album that is my personal definition of “all killer no filler”, provided you like a healthy dose of brass section)

This has been a difficult week for the churning community, and that pent up frustration is boiling over into arguments all over the place. 

It feels like it’s time for one last thought on the whole “sharing vs. gatekeeping” debate that’s raging across every single Discord, Slack, Telegram and WhatsApp MS chat right now before I return to the super serious things I talk about like MySpace surveys.

It’s easily the most divisive topic in the entire hobby, for good reason. And when things are divisive, we tend to think in black and white extremes that don’t reflect the reality we’re operating in.

For veterans, it feels like one more beginner is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and the vault needs to be permanently closed.

And for those beginners, the perception is that a group of elitists are purposely making it impossible to level up, hoarding all of the gold (figuratively and literally) like Smaug. 

Neither of these things are true, but neither one is completely false either. At the same time, binary thinking like this is doing nothing but increasing polarization and ignoring the vast spectrum in the middle between those two poles.

I’m in an interesting spot because I spend a lot of time talking to people on both ends because of the blog. I try my best to understand both sides, because I’ve been in both spots. I was once a very green beginner, and I’m now a grumpy veteran that is beyond sick of watching things die. 

There isn’t one right answer to this dilemma – hell, there isn’t even one right answer about sharing a single unit of knowledge. The spectrum of what is ok to share and where is so wide that the argument will never end.

I like to think my viewpoint can be read between the lines now, but it boils down to this:

New people joining the game isn’t automatically a bad thing. Increased pressure on targets (and customer service lines) unequivocally is a bad thing. 

New players that are willing to put in the work to scale up deserve a chance to move up the food chain, provided they’re doing it in a sustainable way.

On the flip side, the veterans are 100% correct that the market is beyond saturated. Even looking beyond previously easy things like points liquidation or precious metals spend – have you tried to book a J flight to Japan, the Maldives or some other churner favorite lately? It’s not what it used to be.

It’s also deeply frustrating to watch a play that you probed and tested limits on get blown to smithereens when shared with a general public audience. A natural skepticism of beginners is only rational when the vicious cycle keeps repeating.

You’re probably thinking to yourself that this was a lot of words to essentially shrug and say “it depends”. That’s totally fair, but I don’t think I was changing any steadfast opinions today anyway. 

I just want us old heads to think back to our early days when we see a well-intentioned (and well thought out) question from someone earlier on.

And more consequentially, I want beginners to consider how frustrating it must be to have a play go from extremely lucrative to zero overnight. Depending on how full time of a gig you make this, a play dying is like getting fired.

Here’s one final relevant thought to end the week – if you are getting messages that seem disproportionate to something you shared, you may just be on the right track. I’d recommend writing it down in a note before you delete it. 

Murakoze!

Quick note – I’m not really big on self promotion, but if you’re reading this, you’re one of the few people that this is relevant for. There is a signup form on the website for launch notifications to something cool I’m working on with some friends. If that sounds interesting to you, we’d love to let you know when it’s ready to go. If not, no worries!