But not everyone who needs an import needs to hire someone to do it, the default import tools are exceptionally capable and cover 99% of use cases.
As I said, business model.
Audent.io
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But not everyone who needs an import needs to hire someone to do it, the default import tools are exceptionally capable and cover 99% of use cases.
As I said, business model.
willl
Well-known member
@mattrogowski hit the nail on the head.. and @Lukas W. (Ninja'd while I wrote this)
Back before I joined Audentio (just a couple weeks away from 2 years on the team!), I worked for media groups and freelance (among other things, but those aren't relevant to the conversation here).
When I was freelance, I was able to be pretty nimble with small client work, and could hop around on a variety of small things with minimal investment (my biggest source of income early in my career was selling HTML boilerplates, back around the time CSS was just becoming a "thing"). I could do the little one-off projects like a template, design or extension for something, and it'd be no big deal, because I kept a small client base and didn't have to offer much support unless they paid for extra for it.
The media group gigs had more agency-style feel, but focusing on small business (as part of an upsell for advertising). We'd occasionally take larger clients which had more real dev needs outside our standard offering, but for the most part we just had a simple process for cranking out little websites and the like. Taking on larger projects wasn't always feasible just because I was almost always the sole developer (I typically filled the role of full stack in the media group setting, with the rest of the team being designers who did mockups or worked with drag & drop builders). We tried to build relationships with larger agencies to pass the bigger stuff on if my plate was full, and sometimes that worked.
Growing the work with both small and larger clients we wanted at a media company just wasn't feasible, however. With our team, we couldn't have it both ways, no matter how much we tried. We could either focus on what launched us as small clients, or focus on larger clients. The team wasn't big enough to do both, and the last one I worked for ended up downsizing spectacularly because it tried to do both and failed (and, eventually, the entire company sold). If we hadn't tried to do both, we might've succeeded.
Audentio is just making a transition from one business focus to another, and unfortunately, it's never going to be a simple process for everybody. I've actually been really impressed at how it has been handled; with over 20 years in the web dev industry, I've seen a LOT of people try this and fail.
I can absolutely guarantee there is no way we could make this transition without some customers being affected, but with our extension of support and open-sourcing of a LOT of products (not to mention making others free), I can't imagine a better way of handling it that benefits the most people without causing too much headache for our team here.
Back before I joined Audentio (just a couple weeks away from 2 years on the team!), I worked for media groups and freelance (among other things, but those aren't relevant to the conversation here).
When I was freelance, I was able to be pretty nimble with small client work, and could hop around on a variety of small things with minimal investment (my biggest source of income early in my career was selling HTML boilerplates, back around the time CSS was just becoming a "thing"). I could do the little one-off projects like a template, design or extension for something, and it'd be no big deal, because I kept a small client base and didn't have to offer much support unless they paid for extra for it.
The media group gigs had more agency-style feel, but focusing on small business (as part of an upsell for advertising). We'd occasionally take larger clients which had more real dev needs outside our standard offering, but for the most part we just had a simple process for cranking out little websites and the like. Taking on larger projects wasn't always feasible just because I was almost always the sole developer (I typically filled the role of full stack in the media group setting, with the rest of the team being designers who did mockups or worked with drag & drop builders). We tried to build relationships with larger agencies to pass the bigger stuff on if my plate was full, and sometimes that worked.
Growing the work with both small and larger clients we wanted at a media company just wasn't feasible, however. With our team, we couldn't have it both ways, no matter how much we tried. We could either focus on what launched us as small clients, or focus on larger clients. The team wasn't big enough to do both, and the last one I worked for ended up downsizing spectacularly because it tried to do both and failed (and, eventually, the entire company sold). If we hadn't tried to do both, we might've succeeded.
Audentio is just making a transition from one business focus to another, and unfortunately, it's never going to be a simple process for everybody. I've actually been really impressed at how it has been handled; with over 20 years in the web dev industry, I've seen a LOT of people try this and fail.
I can absolutely guarantee there is no way we could make this transition without some customers being affected, but with our extension of support and open-sourcing of a LOT of products (not to mention making others free), I can't imagine a better way of handling it that benefits the most people without causing too much headache for our team here.
I don't want to be overly negative or critical but this comes back to my comment about trust, communucation, etc. There are tons of addons I'd happily pay for and install if I had confidence they'd be around long-term. Aside from Bob, Xon, Steve/Russ and a handful of other people, I always weigh up how much I want the addon vs how much I trust the developer to be around long-term. The cost of the addon itself doesn't even come into it for me unless you're talking massive amounts. Honestly, I'd avoided Themehouse addons because of how things had gone in the past (e.g. with Mike's hosting, with other changes in direction, etc).
For the above reasons I (and many others I suspect) stick to pretty much the stock XF setup with only the most critical addons installed which then leads to a catch-22 situation where the market's not their to sustain the developers.
Lukas W.
Well-known member
Of course you can adjust your company to suit the business model. Sadly that most likely requires you to fire the vast majority of employees to make it work with what little income stream you have to work with. Or you change your business model, which is effectively what we're doing right now. Same for single person freelancing. You can switch the field of service you provide by putting in hard work to gain a different expertise, or you just switch to a different market.
Just because you can survive in a market doesn't mean it's a viable market, or a market that you can grow in. Sure some people are content when they can finance their daily life, but many will strife to grow, and it's not possible given the many hurdles and limitations.
You're a lot more alone with this attitude than you think you are unfortunately. We've tried offering add-ons for higher prices to sustain them. The results were devastating sales numbers, even for high requested add-ons. I've also offered a very different business model for my Editor Manager add-on, where you only need to pay if your site produces an income stream. To this very day I have my doubt that of the hundreds of downloads only five people have ads or user upgrades on their site.
It's simply a deadlock situation and you can see the results on the market. New people can't enter because they don't have trust, old people can't stay because every mistake they have made is remembered years later. You can see how many providers that leaves on the market.
mattrogowski
Well-known member
This surely isn't a new problem, though? Would the same risk not have been there during the height of vB3 and plugin developers at the time for example? No developer can guarantee there's going to be long term support for anything, due to career or life changes or just wanting to do something else. Likewise, it would be unrealistic for us to promise to still be supporting a $20 addon and giving it our full attention in 2030 so people felt confident in buying it. Like, we can't decide that we can't do X or build Y product and expand the way we want, because we have to make sure we maintain an existing $20 product forever. If anything, a developer feeling like they're going to have to guarantee support of a product for a time they can't necessarily commit to will just make them reluctant to even make it in the first place.
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Yes but its somewhat disingenuous to suggest there isnt a viable market for everyone. It's just not a viable market for your business model and aims.
Lukas W.
Well-known member
Why is it? The add-on market is not viable, period. Barging in here claiming you can make a living with imports and compare that is like blaming a car repairman he's doing the wrong job because you can live fine from selling people used cars.
Analogies and all aside and assuming it was all exactly the same, I personally wouldn't call a market that can sustain a handful or a few dozen freelancers a viable market.
Alpha1
Well-known member
The very same arguments have been made by single developers as well as companies. Its nothing new. The XenForo ecosystem does not retain developers, nor does it attract enough. Quality, reliability and coverage has been a concern with the platform for years. Themehouse is not the first and will not be the last addon provider leaving XenForo. Its simply too hard for developers to earn enough income from a small percentage of XenForo customers who are visiting the resource manager, willing to trust in and pay for third party addons.
I do hope that at some point XF will introduce measures to improve sales for addon developers.
Like install & buy addons right from admin panel.
And implement code reviews in order to weed out the developers that sow distrust in clients.
But Im not holding my breath.
Many admins simply have ZERO trust in 99% of the developers on xenforo.com They stick to Xon, Bob, Siropu and a few others. And for good reason. Others have jumped ship. The situation with the addon scene on xf.com makes it much harder for new developers to earn trust and customers.
I do not understand why Themehouse ever thought this was going to be a sustainable business model. Buying up hundreds of cheap addons, dropping support for them, changing direction frequently, releasing new ones and supporting those until it has become unsustainable again. Over the years many admins have decided to shun TH addons due to trust issues.
I do hope that at some point XF will introduce measures to improve sales for addon developers.
Like install & buy addons right from admin panel.
And implement code reviews in order to weed out the developers that sow distrust in clients.
But Im not holding my breath.
Many admins simply have ZERO trust in 99% of the developers on xenforo.com They stick to Xon, Bob, Siropu and a few others. And for good reason. Others have jumped ship. The situation with the addon scene on xf.com makes it much harder for new developers to earn trust and customers.
I do not understand why Themehouse ever thought this was going to be a sustainable business model. Buying up hundreds of cheap addons, dropping support for them, changing direction frequently, releasing new ones and supporting those until it has become unsustainable again. Over the years many admins have decided to shun TH addons due to trust issues.
The devs who I farm out client work to, and have done so for the last however many years all seem to be doing great.
So once again, its your business model. And thats why you are moving along, just stop trying to dramatize it to suggest otherwise.
Lukas W.
Well-known member
You have ignored about every single one of the points I made so far and continuously stuck to the "but my personal bubble of 10 people works fine!" argument just to keep this discussion going. If anything, I think you just don't want to see it. But I don't really mind, I'm glad that business is working for a few people. It just won't grow with the current course, but that seems of no concern to you, and to each their own in that regard.The devs who I farm out client work to, and have done so for the last however many years all seem to be doing great.
Obviously there're no guarantees. It's more about cost-benefit and risk. Is a developer fairly stable, do they have a long-term presence, do they communicate well to their customers if there are issues, has their past history shown them to be helpful if the worst happens (say Xon for example quit completely, I'm reasonably confident from past interactions that he'd do his best to pass his addons on to someone else to maintain or he'd point customers in the right direction). I don't remember the guys name but that's happened before on here, someone left and someone else took over all their existing addons. Saying "we've open sourced it, sort it out yourself" is a less than ideal approach but an understandable one with as many addons as TH has.
As for support, I think the most I'm asking for is something like "we'll do our best to make sure that this addon is maintained and works for future updates for XF2" which probably means something like a few years of maintainance. No one's expecting an addon purhcased now to work on XF4 in a decade.
Exactly. It's also very telling that we're all mentioning the same 2-3 names for devs (and the same goes for styles). The ecosystem is so small and it's a catch-22 until XF helps to support it better.
Lukas W.
Well-known member
We've reached out to quite a few developers to offer them our add-ons, but they declined. Open sourcing them was the last resort step to ensure that anyone can contribute and keep them alive if they so like.
You'd be surprised.
mattrogowski
Well-known member
Sure, and I can understand that. And the 2030 example was mildly exaggerated to make a point. But the problem with promising support for future versions is that it's still very open ended. I'm pretty sure, unless Mike can correct me, that we don't get any inside track on when 2.3 will be released or what will be in it, so we can't plan ahead much. We'd then need to update them for 2.3 which may be a year or more away, and then support them for a time after to cover bugs introduced in the 2.3 versions. But say we did that and then bounced out, we'd be in the same situation of upgrading them and then leaving people with newly upgraded and now unsupported addons. It's just kicking the can down the road. And if we said we'd do it for the entire 2.x series then we're still committing to doing what we're doing now for several years, and the point of this is that we can't do that now, let alone for several more years.
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Which comes back to XF better supporting their dev community (be that roadmaps, early access, etc).
AndrewSimm
Well-known member
I learned during my vBulletin days to install as few user facing add-ons as possible because you can expect them to eventually stop working. I think TH made good add-ons but if you followed the resource threads it was obvious that they had a hard time updating all of them. In other words, the output seemed to never match the apparent size of the company. Them leaving hurts other developers who users will not trust to continue to maintain their add-ons. I don't know what the long-term answer looks like but there needs to be a change in Xenforo's strategy around community based add-ons. For starters, better security to prevent add-on theft. I don't know what this looks like but I know it would help developers.
I wrote in the feedback that I am ready to withdraw support for add-ons that you no longer want to support. and you are not going as already said by you.
We will be moving the open-source products to a repository that anyone can access (Coming soon!). Open source products are unmaintained and unsupported but if any add-on developers are interested in maintaining / supporting them, they are most welcome to. Free products can be found on ThemeHouse and will be supported and maintained.
If, of course, it is relevant in the future, let me know in personal conversation or here. Are you ready to hand over support or not.
We will be moving the open-source products to a repository that anyone can access (Coming soon!). Open source products are unmaintained and unsupported but if any add-on developers are interested in maintaining / supporting them, they are most welcome to. Free products can be found on ThemeHouse and will be supported and maintained.
If, of course, it is relevant in the future, let me know in personal conversation or here. Are you ready to hand over support or not.
imno007
Well-known member
I have to confess I would never have paid for any of their more expensive addon's that you had to buy outside of a subscription, because I observed over time that when you paid for one of their addon's, what you paid for was pretty much all you could ever count on getting, i.e. there wouldn't be much in the way of feature updates and you might wait months for minor bug fixes, and then on top of that there was a decent chance the addon would pretty much be forgotten by the company within a year or so. So I think the blame goes both ways in this case: they didn't support the addon's as much as buyers would have liked because there wasn't enough money in it for them, but on the other hand there might have been more money in for them (although maybe still not enough) if they had better supported their addon's.
mattrogowski
Well-known member
I don't really know enough on that front to comment or have an opinion to be honest. If we decided to support 2.3 it would still be something we'd find hard to sustain regardless, and we'd still be having this conversation when we eventually pulled support after updating everything for 2.3, which was my main point. I've been maintaining most of our addons for the last few months and have done the best I can with it, but can tell you the number of maintenance tasks and support overhead is high. As @imno007 mentioned above, sometimes updates haven't been released as quickly as even I'd have liked. However, when we're taking on other work and building new things and growing the business, addon fixes haven't always been possible to keep bumped to top of my list. I used to develop plugins for MyBB in my free time and maintain and support those, I did that for the enjoyment of it, unfortunately it's just not as doable with a growing business after a certain point.
From all conversations here, in my mind comes "Sorry guys, business is business, and the rest doesn't matter".
At least would be nice to give opportunity to current developers to support some of these addons or styles.
I think Theme House always been a company who was focused on making money than building customers trust around, which is very sad.
Hope your next projects everything will be otherwise.
At least would be nice to give opportunity to current developers to support some of these addons or styles.
I think Theme House always been a company who was focused on making money than building customers trust around, which is very sad.
Hope your next projects everything will be otherwise.
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