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Is there a market for commercial plugins and themes?
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yes for sure, I am not thinking on getting rich lmao well not from this anyway. I just enjoy making them.
I agree with the installation process being a drag when you are new . Some people would still need a nurse maid to help get them on their way lol
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@vrijvlinder: The product does matter as everything in this world is based on supply and demand. @DirtyDog is right in his assumption that setting a bottom price in hopes of boosting the sales volume will almost always fail (note: I'm talking about the world of software). You can't magically create demand that isn't there, even with top-notch marketing. Propaganda might work, but that would just be wrong (my own moral perspective).
What you instead could do, is create a supply of something that will be in high demand - in the world of software, this would be high quality products. There's already a huge supply of cheap-ass products and developers (excuse my language) but the demand simply isn't big enough to feed them all (source: every single site dealing with freelance devs).
So, how can one create a supply of and demand for high quality and premium plugins, themes and apps in the Vanilla community? The market is definitely there.
Kasper Kronborg Isager (kasperisager) | Freelance Developer @Vanilla | Hit me up: Google Mail or Vanilla Mail | Find me on GitHub
it boils down to stones and ponds.
Vanilla is niche, then add to it commercial products. The market becomes focussed. Then add to that the commerce trend involved and becuase the software is free, the attainable market price and profitability becomes even more niche. But it is defineable, just not what you would hope.
Setting prices on the basis of live by the sword die by the sword seems to be the way to go, set out what you want. Attack that demographic, and sell on that basis. But as others have stated, you wont get rich lol.
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Creating demand does happen, but the the examples are limited.
The record analogy just isn't related to software at all.
Software has a lot of hidden costs there is a lot to development, and it is constantly ongoing. It is true that there isn't much starting costs, but there are more cost an people think. There isn't a one size fits all solution for software, you model has to fit the scenario.
However software and selling software, involve complex human behaviour, if you are smart you can use that to your advantage.
Software services like twitter or facebook are more about behaviour than they are about technology. The technology was always there. Ok they are advances in scalability, but the basic idea is not new.
grep is your friend.
You all have very valid points of course. I do understand your views and likely you have more experience in development than I do. I just think that anything is possible when you put your mind to it.
http://www.inc.com/ss/aaron-patzer-made-170-million
You can say, well they wanted to get rid of the competition or whatever fluke that made this happen. I doubt this kid was planning on getting rich. I am sure he just wanted to create something useful and it took off.
Maybe young people have more fearlessness and care less about getting rich so they do what they like and in turn get rich.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/09/teen-millionaires-startups-ent-success-cx-ml_0211millionaires.html
http://www.slideshare.net/imtoolsinabox/you-can-make-millions-by-giving-away-free-open-source-software
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38657599/How_I_Made_My_Millions
There is a way to do this, but I don't think it involves thinking you will make millions.
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The key is timing. More than marketing, more than pure skills, more than having great ideas. Good timing, whether it occurs by pure luck or by wise planning, is absolutely critical for success. I know of a company that launched a VOIP service long before Skype did. It failed miserably, for several reasons:
1. The infrastructure could not support it (DSL & co were just being introduced).
2. Not so many people used Internet regularly, at the time.
3. Due to #1 and #2, the amount of potential Users was too low.
Just one or two years after the failure, the Internet boomed and Skype did the same. At the time, Skype had just started. Its software required a lot of bandwidth, calls dropped frequently, you name the issue. Yet, it got the timing right, and now we see where we are. To make an absurd comparison, you would have been burned on the stake if you invented a mobile phone in the Middle Age. Find me one person who doesn't use them, nowadays.
Slightly OT: if you hear someone who says he can teach you how to get rich the same way he did, ignore him.
My shop | About Me
@businessdad
-I have found that person.
As a businessman, what do you consider a fair price for the finder's fee.
yadbu - yet another difference between us! Ananchronisms do exist. So do long broad sweeping statements.
If you are looking for a person who doesn't use facebook, skype, linked in, or twitter as well as cable tv - I think i can find you one. I can also find you a person who never ate a "Big Mac",
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
i am almost a millionaire.
i have the $1 it's just the 6 zeroes after it I am struggling with
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@422 here's a tip. Always put the 0's at the end before the decimal point
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
I think everybody in the community understood that you have a particular dislike for anyone who treats Software Development as a business, there is no need to reiterate the concept with sarcastic comments, nor with overly enthusiastic comments when someone release a free plugin that does the same as a commercial one.
My shop | About Me
@businessdad said
get a grip my friend!
To make an absurd comparison, you would have been burned on the stake if you invented a mobile phone in the Middle Age. Find me one person who doesn't use them, nowadays.
-I have found that person.
As a businessman, what do you consider a fair price for the finder's fee.
You have lost your humor my boy - Personally, I don't use mobile phones - (Truth or smite me now). I found you a person "me". I took the time searching my phone habits for you and found you an answer.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
So with all the speculation going around, is there actually going to be an addition to the current Addon's repo to allow a "paid" side? I've just looked at other forum software and they also have an option for paid services. Most handle payments through paypal.
Even the most popular add-on's for other major forum software are only a few thousand downloads above the ones on Vanilla. I'd say there is some definite potential market here.
A key difference though is the hosting model. The Vanilla team produces what the rest of us use for free due to paid subscriptions which only allow certain approved addons (rightfully so). The only advantage for the core devs to allow paid 3rd party stuff is that the community hopefully grows and there is more active development - which is critically important. However, I don't know if this fits within their business model of moving people onto the hosted plan.
Are paid plugins going to be approved for hosted plans? If so, the core devs will spend a TON of time having to trudge through it all. Hosted plans already most of the sought after plugins (badges, reactions, etc), so why spend money on someone elses implementation? Point being, those that are willing to spend money will want a professional product with all the bells and whistles and will rightfully go with the hosted plans that come with free support for everything. I'm not saying this a bad thing, but rather logical.
All of this is of course me being speculative as well. I guess we await for the core team to chime in to tell us if they will allow it or not so that we can move on. I would like to see it implemented, however I can understand their reasons not to allow it. After all, most of us here are using a product that is solely supported by those that use the hosted plans.
]LOL, yea I laughed really hard reading this that vrijvlinder posted. Basically the guy was saying, "offer free software so that I can take advantage of it and turn millions of dollars (somehow)". But what he was really saying is, "Here is a catchy title that will hopefully garnish tons of views so that I can sell my crappy book to unsuspecting idiots".
Not only those who are willing to spend money. Anyone who is serious about running a community website would expect and use only a professional product. If they feel that it's not the case, they move on. I already got a few clients who contacted me to discuss a project to be done using Vanilla and, half way through the analysis, chose another platform because they had the feeling that Vanilla is "cheap". It can become quite frustrating.
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They probably misinterpreted "cheap" with "bare bones" and "simplistic", which is just dumb on their part. A simple forum, IMHO, is the way to go. Less crap here and there. Helps on bandwidth, people's minds, and readability. I give you reddit.com as an example.
It is good to hear that you are having success with clients.
I hope you and @peregrine resolve your misunderstandings. Seems like days ago everything was fine and then bam
Three of them gave me practically the same feedback. They told me that they were not happy with the limitations of both the hosted and OS version, and that getting professional support would be too expensive. They certainly saw the potential of Vanilla, but they weren't willing to wait until such potential is developed. Better luck next time.
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Microsoft is giving away and has given away windows8. Does it reduce it to cheap useless crap? (besides the fact windows has always been crap) but people go for it. There are countless examples of software that was given away which turned a profit.
If the problem is human psychology , then the approach needs to be targeted as such. There are formulas to all of this. Kas is right, timing is everything when it comes to pioneering something. But if you are smart you get it. You create the right timing . Not everyone has this vision, that is true.
But I insist that the best way for people to try your stuff is to make it free or charge a disposable fee. I used the music example to portray what the consumption of media is today. People buy a song, listen to it and forget it. It is no longer like when there used to be collections and trading records was a way of life. Now it is a momentary thing. Only songs that have something special last more than a few month in popularity. So the mentality of people is, "I ain't paying for the whole album when I only like one song". And if you want to sell your song sell it for 10% of what the whole album costs, if it has 10 songs. That seems fair no?
Imo, something with utility like software is more valuable than an end product. Something that helps make the end product. The recording industry has changed thanks to software. Now people can make crisp clean records at home.
The value of something is it's utility and lifespan. People can be retrained to have a different mentality .
Lesson 1. Free or Gratis does not necessarily = cheap
about the burning at the stake for making a cel phone during the inquisition ....that could only happen to St. Softjuarez, at time, St. Softjuarez was the name of the first hacker... ever ....
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I'm surprised that "Windows has always been crap" didn't come out earlier. Every OS has its issues, and Windows is not necessarily the worst one out there.
Apart from that, I can add lesson 2: free or gratis doesn't necessarily mean good value.
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well if you like to look at it that way I suppose it also works, but those words already have that suspicion of being cheaply made or no good attached by virtue of the meaning , adulterated by perception possibly from a bad experience.
Like with tools. It is better to buy a quality tool however much it costs than to have to buy the cheap one several times. I suppose these lessons are what make us learn that cheap may be bad and free is worse.
It is not like this with everything. The saying ''What did you expect for just a $1 ? " has made people think that quality is gauged by it's price. One first needs to figure out what good quality means to know the difference .
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I can say exactly the same of what you wrote. You may think that "nothing beats free" and, anyway, since it's free it means it doesn't cost anything to try it. That's a dangerous way of thinking, it may cause more trouble than one can imagine. This is especially true in the world of software.
Personally, I got more headaches from free products than from paid ones. The latter were not always perfect (far from that), but they came with a guarantee and some support included, which are invaluable. If they didn't work, seller had to either promptly fix them, free of charge, or refund the order. In both cases, my money was safe, and I didn't have to spend my time trying to fix issues myself.
When I started working with Vanilla I downloaded many free plugins and themes, and spent several hours doing some QA, before installing them. Not all of them passed, and I had to write some extra ones from scratch for my clients.
Besides, on most of them, I had to do a long job of figuring out what code did and writing code documentation (which is required by most clients). That time alone costed the clients a fortune.
In short, more than a matter of price, it's a matter of value for money, and only experience can teach us how to find the best deals.
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You have a good point on this, however you should always do your homework and make sure that the seller is willing to fulfill a refund if the client is not satisfied. Goes back to the whole, "Time vs Money". Free things are awesome and cool and the user shouldn't expect absolutely ZERO support, but they should also understand that the programer has zero obligation to them. Again, if the user does their homework, they should be able to identify projects or users who support their free software with updates and what not.
No doubt my chocolate theme/plugin is on that list. I'll admit, my code for that went from OK to just plain ridiculous. After I saw that 2.1 had a traditional layout, I stopped maintaining it and just hacked at it till it worked since I was afraid my stuff would come out AFTER 2.1 was released. It is really nasty and would take me a while to figure out what I was doing again.
I haven't had a whole bunch of questions relating to the duo, so I suppose it worked for most people. In fact, if I google search for my theme, I can see that a great deal of sites are using it successfully. So I guess it wasn't an ultra fail afterall
. I don't recommend anyone looking under the hood though.