Fan-Directed Fiction

So I've written about Wattpad before.  People can post fiction there, which members can then read and comment upon.  Wattpad has just raised quite a lot of money, so I'm thinking about them again.

If you click the link about Wattpad raising money, you'll see a venture capitalist's comments on Wattpad.  I'll reserve judgment on the financial aspects of the investment, as that is really something I know nothing about.  But I totally don't agree with the guy who's quoted.

1. I'm not at all interested, I've decided, in participating in a site where fan fiction is promoted.  I tried reading at fanfiction.net for awhile, and I just didn't like it.  (What I'm saying is, I've given fan fiction a chance.  And I still rejected it.  I just don't find it compelling.  But search "fan fiction" in the search box on this blog, and you'll see plenty of writing about that.)
2. Here's a quote from the piece: "You’re able to upload a story chapter by chapter, folks are able to comment on that chapter, and they can provide encouragement to the writer and actually signal where they’d like want the story to go, which creates a type of engagement that’s impossible in an offline context."  First of all, I don't write chapter-by-chapter.  I plot the whole story in advance and divide into chapters later.  I also have no interest in going where my readers want me to, I'd prefer to tell the story I came up with.  (Game of Thrones would've been more of a feel-good story if Eddard Stark hadn't been killed, and I'm sure no one was weeping for Joffrey, but I, for one, am glad that GRRM didn't write to fulfill his fans' desires.)  If the fans signal where the story goes, it turns into fan fiction, with Mary Sues and improbable romances and all the rest of that crap.
3. Wattpad comments are useless.  Here's a sampling, from the first chapter of a story that can't quite decide whether it wants to use sophisticated language ("eschew") or colloquialisms ("tummy," "all ironic about it") or whether it's using an omniscient narrator or a third-person narrator (a character is described as brushing "long, straight, coffee-colored hair out of her face" but then debates herself about how to irritate her father -- a person would think the second of those things, but not the first) or even what word to use to refer to a character (we have "highness," "father," and "Bryn," all in the same chapter).  But the praise is effusive and not literate or constructive: "Wow! I only read 1st chapter and I know this story will be amazing :D Btw I hate her dad xP" and "Wow. I can't stop reading...my eyes are glue to the screen! XD" and "How in the world are you able to write such magnificent words? Please enlighten us!" and "Plz upload next chapter."  (I guess Dolan Duck is getting in on the commenting with that last one there.)

Anyway, yeah, Wattpad isn't for me.  Because I like real books.  Or at least, people who are seeking to eventually become published authors, and who are serious about constructive criticism and not just seeking praise.

Now I'm going to go brush my waist-length straight black hair.