I've been here since 2012, I liked it in the past way better. Maybe partly it's because there were some nice members here that are not active anymore. (Most of them disappeared when italki started its upgrades! )

Bur there are other reasons too! :

_There was an option to see your followings activities and updates before. So you were able to know if your friends have started a discussion or have written a new notebook entry. I think this option had made italki's community more friendly,  members used to write more notebook entries and their writings were seen more, they would receive more comments which was really encouraging. Now you just feel no one ever read what you write except those nice native speakers who correct them.

_Also the website was much faster! But now sometimes I get tired of "One moment! Italki is changing the way the world is learns foreign languages!" when I browse italki!

 I don't know how it has changed for teachers though, because I just started teaching here about a week ago. 

But let's not to be too negative, I'm sure there must be good changes too. 

Overall I really like it here! When I registered in italki my English was awful! Now I'm not perfect at it, but at least I can communicate with people in English. And more importantly I've made some really nice friends here. 

I signed up with Italki in 2014. But at that time I did not have any confidence to write or ask anything. I did not log in for a long time. I've just logged in this site over a month ago so I did not know how Italki was in the past. Anyway, I really love learning on this site. It's very helpful. Some English native speaker're very kind, enthusiastic with easy understanding explanations.

As Myself mention above, sometimes I felt so sad when I'd waited for a long time but there was no correction for my entry. But I also understand there are so many English learners. 

One more thing, I realized that Learners here are so excellent when they are able to learn many languages. 

They inspired me. Now I don't want to waste time anymore.

Been here years ago ... and the same as time has changed people,italki has changed ...

less people saying thank you,more technical development +++