sullise
Verified User
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2004
- Messages
- 477
Been thinking on this for a while now.
Plugins. That's one of it's greatest strengths IMHO, the ability to add additional functionality quickly and easily.
That being said, just want to start a discussion about cost vs benefits of this very thing.
Let me start by saying that there are a lot of talented developers here in the forums, and a lot of great plugins, but what of the cost?
I'm not saying that developers should not get compensated for their work, etc..hell, I'm a developer myself, that's not the point of this at all.
My thinking is this...for small hosts with say 1-10 or so servers, it's probably not unthinkable to spend say $20/plugin. But even at this size, if plug costs start to raise to say $50-70 even us smaller hosts can't see the ROI.
Now, add the medium hosts, say 10-100 servers...almost not going to happen. And the large hosts 100+...forget it, IMHO.
It's one thing to buy new plugin licenses as you bring a new server online (but even then, if you have multiple plugins, the cost in theory could be more then the DA license itself..lol), but to buy plugins for all your existing servers..well, you see the problem.
Solution? Well, free is always one..lol..but probably not conductive to getting quality plugins, or at least not very many. People do deserve compensation..makes the world go round.
Creative licensing? Probably the best method that benefits both the developers and the potential clients. By this, I'm talking about something like exponentially declining costs per plugin license.
for example:
$xx for 1-10
$xx-30% for 11-25
$xx-50% for 26-100
$xx-70% for 100+
(note that this is just for discussion sake, not hard percentages).
IMHO, this method definitely benefits all parties. The developers sells more licenses, the host can reduce his/her ROI and might be more inclined to purchase, etc.
The other factor is cost. Is a plugin WORTH $50-70? For example, there are a couple great plugins here that go for that much. Now granted, the ones I'm thinking of you could get away with just putting on a few servers and moving clients who want it to there, thus increasing your ROI, but let's just consider if they were plugins you would want on all servers...the cost would be IMHO prohibitive.
Then there's the issue of the yearly renewal on some of them. That just componds the problem.
Like I said at the beginning, this is just for discussion sake and not about any particular plugin or developer.
Opinions?
Plugins. That's one of it's greatest strengths IMHO, the ability to add additional functionality quickly and easily.
That being said, just want to start a discussion about cost vs benefits of this very thing.
Let me start by saying that there are a lot of talented developers here in the forums, and a lot of great plugins, but what of the cost?
I'm not saying that developers should not get compensated for their work, etc..hell, I'm a developer myself, that's not the point of this at all.
My thinking is this...for small hosts with say 1-10 or so servers, it's probably not unthinkable to spend say $20/plugin. But even at this size, if plug costs start to raise to say $50-70 even us smaller hosts can't see the ROI.
Now, add the medium hosts, say 10-100 servers...almost not going to happen. And the large hosts 100+...forget it, IMHO.
It's one thing to buy new plugin licenses as you bring a new server online (but even then, if you have multiple plugins, the cost in theory could be more then the DA license itself..lol), but to buy plugins for all your existing servers..well, you see the problem.
Solution? Well, free is always one..lol..but probably not conductive to getting quality plugins, or at least not very many. People do deserve compensation..makes the world go round.
Creative licensing? Probably the best method that benefits both the developers and the potential clients. By this, I'm talking about something like exponentially declining costs per plugin license.
for example:
$xx for 1-10
$xx-30% for 11-25
$xx-50% for 26-100
$xx-70% for 100+
(note that this is just for discussion sake, not hard percentages).
IMHO, this method definitely benefits all parties. The developers sells more licenses, the host can reduce his/her ROI and might be more inclined to purchase, etc.
The other factor is cost. Is a plugin WORTH $50-70? For example, there are a couple great plugins here that go for that much. Now granted, the ones I'm thinking of you could get away with just putting on a few servers and moving clients who want it to there, thus increasing your ROI, but let's just consider if they were plugins you would want on all servers...the cost would be IMHO prohibitive.
Then there's the issue of the yearly renewal on some of them. That just componds the problem.
Like I said at the beginning, this is just for discussion sake and not about any particular plugin or developer.
Opinions?
.