Hoh!
It says it's a $5 fee to join it. What makes you think it's taking off? Not to dispute it or anything, just I'm dubious about throwing $5 at an unknown platform, even if I get where they're coming from for funding *nods twice*

lots of nsfw artists on twitter are joining- and now they have it so anyone who pays for a key (the $5 thing) also gets invite codes, looks like three codes per week to give to friends n such! So if you can find someone with a key you can join for free :)
it's been a thing for over a year now, and seems to be steadily improving and gaining traffic so figured I'd jump on board- really hopeful it'll be like tumblr before porn was banned ;v; Twitter sucks so hard to art, and FA isn't quite my style for the ideal social/blogging art platform.

Yeah, I agree with you on that last sentence there. Twitter is really weird on images in general, and FA needs... HUGE changes that aren't happening. Even though it's only for 0w0's, e621 is way better than FA will ever be lol. Hell, they have one of the chillest furry discords I've ever been in. If you have an account there try it out, srsly. Everyone's super mature and chill.
Anyways, the point, where was it... oh there it is: I hope Pillowfort gets traction. It has the potential to be the Tumblr that never existed!

I'm not a huge fan of e621 as a platform since its not really...social at all, and most of the comments I get on there are the most bizarre or entitled shit (since I guess it's not assumed an artist will see the comments? I dunno, I crave validation so I check them, and upload my stuff there).
Not to mention the way they've handled trans characters, just not a big fan, though I do already upload there because I know it's a pretty huge site with big viewership.

Tumblr WAS incredible as a nsfw platform, I was there and had a pretty big following there. The interactivity (via asks and people putting tags on reblogs) was very unique and I loved it. I'm hoping pillowfort will grow to be something similar. :)

Yeah, e621 was pretty dated on their trans terms. They have since fixed it so it defaults to the now accepted terms... though some ppl had a fit over it cause of course they did.
E621 has a different social culture than other platforms. On there, it's just the art and comments about the art because the artist doesn't upload most of it but instead other people. They also have a stricter guideline as to what art is allowed on the site, mostly judging by obvious quality. 1000-hours-in-ms-paint posts won't fly by so easily. Generally I find things both more relaxed and comical over there, though the "comical" part is sometimes for the wrong reasons.

Old Tumblr was better, but Pillowfort is a new site so it doesn't just have to be old Tumblr: it can be better than old tumblr. I'm not sure exactly what Pillowfort can do to improve on Tumblr's formula because I was never an avid user of the site, but I'm sure there can be some things Pillowfort can improve on compared to old Tumblr!

The fact that trans people have said they don't like the new terms (which are "rooted in science" but like...not accurate and in some ways still pretty demeaning...but that's a whole other can of worms) is enough for me not to post trans/gnc content on there in general since I don't want people to have terms applied to their characters/sonas that might upset them.

Also its a platform that kind of removes the artist from the equation in a way that is...not helpful to artists. I have had people arguing with me about what is going on in a picture when I'm the one that drew it, lmfao. It's just a very strange place for a content creator.

and like...the general attitude of people there that's like "if people are upset by something its their fault" that is just..shitty and not the kind of thing I vibe with, tbh.

sorry this is rambly, lol. I'm just hopeful that pillowfort will be the place I'm looking for as a blog/social art site :)

Ah, I understand your criticisms!
I genuinely didn't know about the trans response to the new terms. Most of the criticism I saw was just 4channers being mad that their slang terms were getting yeeted. I do notice that you have a DNP on there prohibiting uploads of your art that has trans characters in it. When I first saw it I was like "huh" but now I get why you did that. The whole "tag what you see" philosophy of e621 does present problems with trans characters, and while they have taken steps to make it better (the lore tags, for example), properly tagging characters' gender, no matter what gender they look like, will never work under the danbooru framework e621 is based on. RIP.
I don't really feel that e621 has that "if you're triggered, it's your own fault" vibe, though I could be just oblivious to it. There have been flame wars, sure, but those seem to be rare at least according to my observations. I won't fault you in any way for not being comfortable on the site: you have very good reasons! I just don't feel those same reasons, probably because of who I am and my experiences in the gaming crowd making me used to problematic speech. I've been trying to be more inclusive and get out of that toxic crowd, but I'm still learning!
I'm glad we had a mature conversation about this. Thanks for sharing your view!