Matter Of Value

[Ryan]

Put simply, your an idiot.

Learn to read.

LOL.

So eloquently put :)

[Craiger]

Support for a plugin or theme is only time consuming if you allow it to be.

Anybody that has ever had a small business knows that it is time-consuming and an internet biz runs 24 hours. There never seems to be enough time for everything and everyone.

What's that you say? I already have? How embarrassing for you Craig. You should really check into someone's background before accusing them of not having done anything huh?

LMAO, dude really??? Embarrassed #NOT ... I guess you don't know a satirical poke when its made. Of course I spent a few minutes on your site

[conorp]

LOL.

So eloquently put :)

Well he is. His whole argument is based on the fact that he couldn't read the first line of the plugin description.

[Jeffro]

Ok dokey, no need to start slinging personal insults around. It may be getting close to thread closure time.

I understand that someone may feel ripped off and such by the way folks are going about charging for their plugins and such but wouldn't a good indicator of the right and wrong way of doing things be the free market? From what I've heard, the All In One Seo Pro version of the plugin is one of the top performers on WPPlugins.com. I don't understand why that would be the case if what he was doing was ripping people off.

[Craiger]

Uh oh, Thread-Nazi sighting ... just kidding.

Ben seems to be a big-boy, at least I don't see any tears, but you are right I think this subject is worn out!

What next Ben? Let's debate the Google XML plugin now

[WPblogger]

Ben seems to be a big-boy, at least I don't see any tears, but you are right I think this subject is worn out!

I'm crying on the inside...

And... I am a big-boy but I don't see what my weight has to do with anything.

Ok, enough of the dumb jokes. I agree this thread has probably run it's course as I'm obviously not changing anyone's mind & my mind hasn't been changed either.

Obviously the free market will determine whether it works or not, but of course we won't be privy to information such as how many people ask for refunds or how many people pay for ongoing support.

[WPblogger]

This comment by an actual AIOSEOP Pro customer does a much better job of highlighting why the PRO version is a ripoff (my words, not his).

What I do find annoying is the fact that given the plug-in has pretty regular updates, you only have access to download the plug-in for 7 days unless you take out, what I consider, an expensive monthly subscription.

http://onefinejay.com/2010/01/08/on-...1#comment-7496

So you buy the PRO plugin & as soon as the next update comes out (even if it's just a bug fix or patching a security gap or something that isn't an upgrade but simply fixing a previous mistake) you have to pay the $39/mo subscription to have access to it.

I'm sorry but that's the definition of a ripoff in my book.

[davecoveney]

Guy writes most popular plugin in the history of WordPress.

Tries to make some money from his hard work and the constant contacts for help and support.

Gets flack for it.

This is why some folk find the world of giving away stuff for free has its limitations - people are surprisingly horrid about what they get, for free. Then, if they need to pay for something, they get a whinge on even though the price is there and clear. Nobody forced them to use the original plugin, or to pay for a premium version.

I suspect that one thing folk forget is that the GPL's spirit is really about allowing coders to swap code amongst themselves without invoking serious legal issues. Coders have been exchanging code since the very early days. The GPL is a technology enabling device, it is not a licence to never pay for anything.

If you want to remove the credits to help supply clients where you don't need the pro membership, then it's easy to do so, so why not just do that? Why whinge?

[Ryan]

Kinda off-topic:
I've often wondered if it would be possible to make money by relabelling WordPress as something CMS'y, giving it a snazzy site to make it look professional and rolling a whole bunch of standard CMS'y plugins into the core (ie: they wouldn't appear in the plugins section), buying a whole stack of adwords and trying to sell it for US$1000 per download or something like that. There's bound to be some businesses out there who would happily part with their hard earned dosh so that they don't need to install a bunch of plugins.

Of course, using that software is rather pointless and isn't worth the US$1000 to most of us. But that doesn't mean that there aren't the occasional over-cashed corporates who would happily cough it up and actually appreciate the lack of plugins needed.

Would that be an evil thing to do? I don't believe so. Would it be popular? Hell no. Would it make a tidy little income? Maybe. Would it be something the average WordPress user would want? Definitely not.

I consider that to be far more extreme than what Michael's doing, yet I still don't see anything wrong with it. The market would work out whether it's a good idea or not. If it's a good idea, then people would buy it, if it's a bad idea then they wouldn't.

[andreasnrb]

Dave I don't think anyone questions anyones right to make money.
Personally I find the choice payment model weird. I think it would be a much better deal to go with lower price and go with the Gravity Forms model.
Or why not skip the free version all together and sell it for $5 or something.