[Post title adapted from Robert Burns, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”]
RE: Torum's Non-Tradable Collectibles and past Gift-for-Gift Campaigns
Whatever happened to Torum's Non-Tradable Collectibles (NTCs)?
Torum Landers earn NTCs whenever they accumulate a bunch (twenty) of the same type of gift - from "Smol Claps" up to "Satoshi Blessings".
For each Lander, earning an NTC reflected the appreciation and generosity from his fellow Landers for contributions to the platform, usually in the form of high quality content and positive community interactions.
To top it off, Landers were led to believe by founders that NTCs would have some kind of special benefit or future value.
This bolstered the opinion that NTCs were fun, good for morale and positive motivators for hightened Lander interaction and high quality posts.
Because of all these factors, NTCs were much sought after items and acquiring them was all the rage.
Generosity as a whole sky-rocketed on the platform.
Then something happened.
NTCs became more than symbols of appreciation, they morphed into status symbols reflecting a Lander's popularity more than their actual contributions to the platform.
In order to acquire more NTCs, Gift-for-Gift (G4G) campaigns were being launched every few days.
Of course, those with the most XTM had a huge advantage over those with minimal amounts of XTM in their wallets.
Whether this was unethical or somehow a way of "gaming the system" was not addressed by the platform's written rules, nor clarified by the founders.
With Torum keeping 70% of exchanged gifts, I can see why G4G was not discouraged by the platform.
In the end, choosing to participate in G4G (or not) was left up to the individual Lander.
Fast forward to NOW.
I feel like my big collection of NTCs is simply gathering dust; an item from a lost and almost forgotten Torum initiative sadly looking for a purpose.
Each NTC resembles an NFT that was initially sold at 100 USD and is now valued at 0.00; or like the 2019 Christmas lights that don't work anymore, but are left in place out of pure laziness.
Where is that "special benefit" or "future value" that spawned the mad frenzy to acquire as many NTCs as fast as possible (aka "spend" vast amounts of XTM during "incentivised" gifting sprees or G4G exchanges)?
So, considering all the above, I wonder...
Now what?
Another new Torum initiative?
More hype and promises?
How long will this next initiative last?
Is it destined to fade into obscurity (a la NTCs)?
No one can predict the future, but past performance...
Too many rhetorical questions to think about right now.
Instead of staring at my NTCs, I'd best spend my time taking down those damn Christmas lights!
(Heavy Sigh)
Submitted for you to ponder in a quiet place.
May you and yours be well and loving life today.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai
(JaiChai 20 May 2022. Simultaneous multi-site submissions posted. All rights reserved.)