In the spirit and agreement of the Insider NDA, this post is devoid from anything currently placed, shared and mentioned exclusively in Insider. This post is aimed to talk about the current concept of Insider itself, and not its current content that is not in the live game yet.
For more than 3 years already, the Insider servers have been accompanied by the base game, in order to provide an open space with the developers to relay update playtesting with the community. I do not know whether this access used to be disclosed earlier, but in current day, this access is practically public.
What is strange about this 'Public' access, however, is that the Insider servers even to this day, are covered with a NDA (a Non-Disclosure Agreement, a written word/agreement that you do not share the contents of a specific platform to anyone else). From what we know in practice with literally any other game that has a separate 'beta' server for testing... 'NDA' does not go through the same door with 'public', in fact it contradicts each other as one states 'exclusivity/secrecy', but the other literally states 'open access'.
The fact is; people always talk. When an NDA is in place, we'd expect that people who even share the littlest things. But when there's a massive public that has access to it without having anything to do for it (other than registering and downloading the game), that information is in no manner controllable unless someone is dumb enough to share a literal screenshot with their name stamped on it, and someone else forwards that. Which in reality, happens even less so than you encountering a Shrouded ghost.
For a few seasons too now (or at least, to what I saw getting to know this game), content creators have also been using these servers to constantly make videos about content that was on the server. When Sirens were added during season 1 (released in Season 3), people have been making mad 'theories' about sirens surfacing, long before Rare ever shared the very first teasers in game (with Duke) or on Twitter (the skeletal runes). This then became followed by people rallying an 'open idea' for purchaseable resources... which also, was there during Season 1 (released in season 2). This likewise was done with the Sunken Shrines for Season 4, with people going crazy about theories on 'The ancients', and is now done again with Rare's recently shared teaser on Twitter. I even had someone spoil the fact the FoF was arriving in season 2 before I even knew about Insider.
Ergo, the literal people that are supposed to promote the game, are breaking the NDA by sharing bits of what is about to come, all under the guise of something being a 'mad game theory'. 'Would be cool if they did that'. This on itself isn't wrong. But it is when the people that provide this platform, tell everyone to hush about it. They also want the server to both act and function as a platform for people to deliver feedback, and/or test the provided content. But that doesn't go well when people in a likewise fashion, are told to hush about it.
The "public" is too big for an environment to control information distribution on. Especially when many players aren't even bothered to rat out distributors of it, or want to use that information as an advantage to get planned videos or 'game theory' videos out to boost their social media / community presence. Get rid of the 'secrecy' aspect of it. You want people to talk. You want people to share thoughts and opinions. You want to involve as many people you can to test something. You want players to share what amazing or integral updates the game has to bring soon. None of these key notes that a PBE (Public Beta Environment) needs, endorses the application of an NDA. An NDA belongs to an environment where you as developer personally invite people to, and where you expect them to relay findings to you directly. Insider's just isn't that, because everyone (except those who are excluded/banned) already can find and access it. And it's already been shown to us that really 'surprising' content, can be kept a surprise on both our and the developper's end, as we've seen with A Pirate's Life.
TL;DR: I think excluding information from Insider has become a rudimentary and contradictionary concept, in the perspective from who can access it and who Rare tries to aim for both providing feedback and promoting their game with it. The aimed concept of 'content being tested by players' would revolve much healthier in a normal/traditional Public Beta Environment.
