I have a couple of thoughts here, which are also largely instinctual, but are maybe kind of a reframing.
First, the thing about fandom now is that it's SO MUCH BIGGER than it was even when I met you 13(?) years ago, and that huge influx of growth means is that there are a lot of people now "in fandom" in some sense who were never going to do fandom the way we were used to doing it. If that was their only option, they wouldn't be here. And maybe you'd rather they weren't; maybe the rest of fandom would be better off without them. But I think the commodification comes partly from fandom being mainstream now. I would guess that the absolute number of people interesting in two-way communication and making things is probably the same or has grown, but they make up a smaller proportion of fandom than they used to.
Second, I don't really consider Ko-fi commodification in the same way I would, say, a commission (although I'm pretty sure commissions have been around forever, people were just quieter about them). Yes, it's money, but you're not exchanging the money FOR anything. This might not fit the technical definition of a gift economy, but it is still a gift, an expression of appreciation, not a payment in exchange for goods or services.
Third, I could write you essays on what gets feedback on AO3. 😂 But I don't think getting less feedback in big fandoms is necessarily a sign of like, larger trends of fannish degeneracy or whatever. It's just plain harder to find stuff you like in big fandoms, and people are more dependent on recs, bookmarks, and being able to sort by kudos, all of which privileges the early breakout hits. Whereas one of my best-performing fics of the past three years is a 1500-word rarepair femslash fic for Crazy Rich Asians, of all things, that I wrote for a flash exchange. (NOT Yuletide, please note; no built-in comment-culture audience here.) That ship has like 40 fics in it! The fandom is still Yuletide-eligible! Meanwhile, SPN fandom always sucked at feedback for me. Moving from Buffy to SPN was an unpleasant shock, and that was still on LJ! Then AO3 was even worse. Yes, I was writing rarepairs, but I wrote rarepairs in Buffy, too, and still got lots of readers.
Those are just some counterpoints that come to mind. That said, I do think fandom has gotten worse, partly due to antis but largely due to stuff that's much much bigger than fandom (granted, I suspect what's driving antis might also be a lot bigger than fandom). The big one is platforms, obviously. The internet as a whole has moved from longform text to microblogging to videos with no written text at all. And then there's like... instagram?? Even platforms that still exist have gotten actively worse for fandom, like tumblr, which according to my arty friends was the best art platform fandom has EVER had for a while there.
Between those two factors of antis and platforms, I'm hearing that some of fandom is going underground. I know someone primarily into art who says basically all the art and fic in her fandoms is being shared on private discords to avoid antis. She kind of forgets AO3 exists for months at a time. On one hand that makes me so, so sad, but on the other hand it kind of just feels like another turn of the wheel, you know? Fandom has a long history of hiding itself away in zines and private Yahoo mailing lists. And it's probably a pretty healthy shift, too. People are doing fandom in a way that works for them and feels safe, and if public fandom isn't it, then they will do it privately. It was a nice reminder that the fandom we're seeing isn't all there is, and that as a wise man once almost said, fandom will find a way. :')
In conclusion: I hear you, for sure. I have a lot of mixed feelings. But IDK, I don't think it's as bad as you fear, and I don't think the trend is inevitably downward.
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First, the thing about fandom now is that it's SO MUCH BIGGER than it was even when I met you 13(?) years ago, and that huge influx of growth means is that there are a lot of people now "in fandom" in some sense who were never going to do fandom the way we were used to doing it. If that was their only option, they wouldn't be here. And maybe you'd rather they weren't; maybe the rest of fandom would be better off without them. But I think the commodification comes partly from fandom being mainstream now. I would guess that the absolute number of people interesting in two-way communication and making things is probably the same or has grown, but they make up a smaller proportion of fandom than they used to.
Second, I don't really consider Ko-fi commodification in the same way I would, say, a commission (although I'm pretty sure commissions have been around forever, people were just quieter about them). Yes, it's money, but you're not exchanging the money FOR anything. This might not fit the technical definition of a gift economy, but it is still a gift, an expression of appreciation, not a payment in exchange for goods or services.
Third, I could write you essays on what gets feedback on AO3. 😂 But I don't think getting less feedback in big fandoms is necessarily a sign of like, larger trends of fannish degeneracy or whatever. It's just plain harder to find stuff you like in big fandoms, and people are more dependent on recs, bookmarks, and being able to sort by kudos, all of which privileges the early breakout hits. Whereas one of my best-performing fics of the past three years is a 1500-word rarepair femslash fic for Crazy Rich Asians, of all things, that I wrote for a flash exchange. (NOT Yuletide, please note; no built-in comment-culture audience here.) That ship has like 40 fics in it! The fandom is still Yuletide-eligible! Meanwhile, SPN fandom always sucked at feedback for me. Moving from Buffy to SPN was an unpleasant shock, and that was still on LJ! Then AO3 was even worse. Yes, I was writing rarepairs, but I wrote rarepairs in Buffy, too, and still got lots of readers.
Those are just some counterpoints that come to mind. That said, I do think fandom has gotten worse, partly due to antis but largely due to stuff that's much much bigger than fandom (granted, I suspect what's driving antis might also be a lot bigger than fandom). The big one is platforms, obviously. The internet as a whole has moved from longform text to microblogging to videos with no written text at all. And then there's like... instagram?? Even platforms that still exist have gotten actively worse for fandom, like tumblr, which according to my arty friends was the best art platform fandom has EVER had for a while there.
Between those two factors of antis and platforms, I'm hearing that some of fandom is going underground. I know someone primarily into art who says basically all the art and fic in her fandoms is being shared on private discords to avoid antis. She kind of forgets AO3 exists for months at a time. On one hand that makes me so, so sad, but on the other hand it kind of just feels like another turn of the wheel, you know? Fandom has a long history of hiding itself away in zines and private Yahoo mailing lists. And it's probably a pretty healthy shift, too. People are doing fandom in a way that works for them and feels safe, and if public fandom isn't it, then they will do it privately. It was a nice reminder that the fandom we're seeing isn't all there is, and that as a wise man once almost said, fandom will find a way. :')
In conclusion: I hear you, for sure. I have a lot of mixed feelings. But IDK, I don't think it's as bad as you fear, and I don't think the trend is inevitably downward.