As long as people are careful and don't just throw merits, nothing is lost.
, and still nothing is lost.
The reason I only left Mitch212 neutral feedback, and only after 2 months, is because I didn't consider it serious enough compared to scammers who actually stole money.
Merit killed bitcointalk because the only thing bitcointalk offered over reddit or any other crypto related platform was the ability to earn.
I'm not going to address most of what you said as I disagree, and its not entirely on topic. However, I think the statement above is, and you might actually be right. Okay, it most certainly didn't kill Bitcointalk, however I do believe it killed of a sub culture of the forum, which was account farming. Either for selling forum accounts or for participating in signature campaigns. Merit practically killed that culture off, because now it actually requires some effort, which not surprisingly a lot of users here aren't willing to put the effort in to reap the rewards.
There's definitely characters within the community that are still here, but maybe not in the most popular sections. I won't deny that we've definitely lost a lot of characters over the years, for better or worse. However, that's just how life is, and how other forums operate too.
Should never have put the temporary illusion of safety above personal liberty..
ie tagging and chasing away likely scammers and crushing the unique economic dynamic of account sales..
This forum started acting like protecting idiots is more important than letting users express their free wills..
How many countless good and intelligent users have been chased away because they might scam..
A new startup cant come here and start a signature campaign for example without completely being bullied into trusting some escrow they have probably never heard of, so heaven forbid they couldnt possibly scam some users willing to take the risk..
A new user can hardly post anything for sale here without being bullied into some 3rd party idiot protection scheme because OMG they might try to scam you..
A new user here cant start lending on any sort of collateral because holy shot they might scam the collateral..
All new economics here CRUSHED by regulatory bullying in the name of protecting idiots...