Why Is the Civitai Team Staying Silent?

Since the update, Civitai has been going through massive chaos and decline. Many users who depended on Blue Buzz have left, and key metrics such as image uploads, reactions, and visibility of featured posts have dropped significantly compared to before the update.
Despite this, the site still runs — and users who continue to protest are all saying the same thing:
“Revert to the pre-update policy immediately.”

However, I personally don’t think the update will be rolled back. That might sound unreasonable to some, but here’s why I think so.

It’s been over a week since the Civitai team made this decision. Even though protests and account deletions are happening everywhere and the site’s state is far worse than before, the team has remained completely silent. To me, that suggests two possibilities.

First, they made this decision fully aware of the consequences.
As JustMaier mentioned in one of his posts, the Civitai staff had already tried to find alternative ways to operate without relying on payment processors, but revenue dropped sharply. Maybe they truly had no viable option left, and they knowingly took this path — even if it meant watching the site spiral into ruin.
Perhaps they accepted this collapse as an inevitable cost — “blood that had to be spilled.”

Second, as many in the community have criticized, the management’s lack of awareness (or failure to foresee the backlash) continues even now. Admitting that they were wrong would mean losing credibility and control over future decisions and updates. So instead, they’re gritting their teeth and stubbornly holding on.

Personally, I lean more toward the first theory. Still, I honestly don’t know what JustMaier and the rest of the team are thinking right now.

What’s unfortunate is that, whether they weather the backlash or revert to the old system, the damage is already done. The site has suffered an internal wound that can’t be healed, and I don’t think it will ever return to its former level again.