I worked at DA in a volunteer capacity (Gallery Director mostly) from 2004-2008 and have been on the site since 2002. I actually started writing a long screed

I worked at DA in a volunteer capacity (Gallery Director mostly) from 2004-2008 and have been on the site since 2002. I actually started writing a long screed about this on my own blog last year with the AI debacle but shelved it (now I feel compelled to return to it) DA had plenty of small problems and a few big ones, exacerbated by incredibly green leadership at the top. It was pretty much run off the whims of the CEO, who even when he had good ideas, had no execution focus, and often outright ignored capable feedback from his lieutenants. Things like having an app, an API, a GTM strategy that was remotely baked for feature releases was simply non-existent at BEST, and done in the most haphazard more typically. DA eventually shredded its own community; exhausting most of its most dedicated members, and ignored offers for acquisition that made much more fiscal and practical sense then the pittance it eventually went for to that trashfire place called Wix, who in all likelihood will eventually sell off bits for scrap. DA was a true gem for a decade, and then fell in spite of that due to categorical poor management and vision (or the execution thereof).