Chichigirl:
To paraphrase you 'I for one have been hurt by your attitude to Stardock/Frogboy'.
Every time I read your posts I feel angry, hurt and puzzled. I have bit my lip again and again but now I just can't hold it in anymore. Frogboy is not out to get you. Stardock are not out to get you. Wincustomize is not out to get you. I don't know if you misunderstand what Frogboy says or what but you seem to read things into his words that I just can't seem to get my head around.
Let's just think if everybody took their skins off this site or this site closed down tomorrow what would happen:
People would still be uploading to Deviantart, deskmod, skinbase, los
More important is that people would still be downloading from those places. Some may not bother looking elsewhere but many will move on to another one.
This will obviously slow down or kill those sites eventually due to higher bandwidth being used. (If it doesn't then Stardock have gained a whole load by closing down as they are no longer paying to host skins and still get the marketing.)
We as skinners end up with less sites to upload to
We as users end up with less sites to download from
Stardock end up with less places for people to become exposed to their software (unless the other sites can conitnue to run with the extra influx of people)
LeCrayon: If WC can't be supported by OD anymore then there is fundamentally something wrong with its businessplan.
Wincustomize was not ever designed to be supported by ODN subscribers. Brad has stated this many times. Would it be fair that those who actually contribute to Stardock by paying for the software end up paying for all the people who just downloaded a shareware copy of WB or use Winamp, Wallpapers etc? I want my subscription to ODN to go toward Stardock making better and more cool customisation tools. Wincustomize was always planned to be able to stand largely on it's own two feet. Some cash from stardock would be inevitable as it can be argued that it is a marketing tool. But when your marketing tool ends up costing more than the marketing from it makes then something has to change.
They tried the hats and t-shirts but once someone has bought a hat and t-shirt why on earth would they want another one? The Wincustomize CD was nice but most of it's content you could get for free anyway.
A subscription is the only viable option after all this other than closing down. And ODN users can still download from the site and use it to it's full capacity. So you don't want to have to subscribe and get the skinbrowser then buy ODN. It's a load of great stuff at a very low price when you think about it.
Not aimed at anyone but freeloaders:
If you don't use Stardock stuff then go elsewhere or be prepared to contribute in some way and get the great skinbrowser and other goodies thrown in. Or be satisfied with the limit on downloads a free account gets you.
Disclaimer: I am admittedly probably too close to the situation to make an objective statement. I talk to many of the stardock developers daily on irc and consider them to be friends. This is one reason it hurts me to see what I feel are unjustified complaints, flames, whatever you like to call them.
