I mean. Seriously.
Now, instead of pointing the finger at this oh-so-hostile xF community, why don't you just say what your true issue is, namely that you and your coders aren't familiar with popular design patterns such as MVC?
It's not even that they are popular, it's that many of the design patterns that XenForo implements are solid, proven to work, patterns that have been around since the 70's.
IPS has a figure because they get a percentage and track the sales. Xenforo does not get a percentage or track sales so you won't get a figure unless developers come forward which I doubt because some people just don't want competition and don't want to be forced to work harder. Resources here aren't even checked for quality.If $250,000 is the TOTAL market at IPS for all the devs combined over the lifetime of the marketplace (30 months or so) then I can tell you that it's significantly smaller than vBulletin's. I would estimate vBulletin's paid market to be at least double that size, potentially several times larger. A figure like that regarding xF's market would be really *REALLY* helpful actually, I don't suppose anything like that has been made available? I know I didn't turn up anything like that for XF in my research
I know Jaxel's work is very high quality, what would interest me is whether or not he's breaking $25-30k a year with his xF mods (e.g making a living from it.) If he isn't I think anyone would struggle to at this point.
Yep. Absolute must-read:
This is a post from him worth reading.
Many good companies make good products and provide good support, making a tidy profit and handsome living. Profit is a very low motivation, if at all. They draw a wage and lead a nice life, making and supporting a good product for a reasonable and market equivalent price, and providing good after sales service.
, they don't accept (or get lost in inexperienced fanboi'ism) direct or 3rd party add-ons, or developers, that bring low grade solutions or blame shifting. They argue with good logic, and accept the truthfulness in most situations and have relatively good BS detectors. DragonByte Tech will likely come to XF one day, if someone doesn't get in first and leave you with little more to offer, and based on the quality of existing products here and elsewhere probably do quite well in extending it's reputation and ensuring a future with XF. The balls in your court and it's up to you if you see the opportunity, or watch and let it likely be lost due to the entry of top quality alternatives.
Only change to the latest that I wish would change back is the one where I had a forum (site news) set so that every post I made there reflected to the Recent News module. Now I have to take an extra step and remember to promote it. Not that big of a deal, just a little extra time. It IS nice though to be able to decide which ones I want - so it's not a change that I can really gripe about and will probably like better.
Regardless of what is stated in that thread, or some others have said in this one, the XF is market is nothing like the vB market (even after years of abuse by IB ownership) or the IPB market. Don't get me wrong, I love XF, but making a decent living from it is still a long ways off (I know of what I speak, I used to own vBSkinworks and Transverse Styles). Whether that fact prevents someone from investing their time and money in it is not up to me to advise, obviously, as here I am.If $250,000 is the TOTAL market at IPS for all the devs combined over the lifetime of the marketplace (30 months or so) then I can tell you that it's significantly smaller than vBulletin's. I would estimate vBulletin's paid market to be at least double that size, potentially several times larger. A figure like that regarding xF's market would be really *REALLY* helpful actually, I don't suppose anything like that has been made available? I know I didn't turn up anything like that for XF in my research
I know Jaxel's work is very high quality, what would interest me is whether or not he's breaking $25-30k a year with his xF mods (e.g making a living from it.) If he isn't I think anyone would struggle to at this point.
Many good companies make good products and provide good support, making a tidy profit and handsome living. Profit is a very low motivation, if at all. They draw a wage and lead a nice life, making and supporting a good product for a reasonable and market equivalent price, and providing good after sales service.
Having come from the bleachers of vB - watching/reading, rarely vocalising - I find XF quite the opposite. The XF community are intelligent and articulate community managers, having found a superior and relatively stress free product to enable them to focus on the community and not the code or bugs. Because of the experience and articulate nature, and having found the zen with XF
That was my suspicion, and I expect the other coders and such on here would say the same (that they're not making $30k a year from their xF work) That's why the other aspects of the decision become so important - because it's almost certainly NOT profitable just now, or for the forseeable future. Going through a lot of hassle and hostility to lose money for probably at least a year or two is why it's hard to convince our coders to give xF a shot. Not, as some have implied, because they can't code "properly".Regardless of what is stated in that thread, the XF is market is nothing like the vB market (even after years of abuse by IB ownership). Don't get me wrong, I love XF, but making a decent living from it is still a long ways off (I know of what I speak, I used to own vBSkinworks and Transverse Styles). Whether that fact prevents someone from investing their time and money in it is not up to me to advise, obviously, as here I am.
I don't think we would have the excellent paid addons that we have now if their developers didn't had profit in mind. Profit is always the biggest motivation for making paid add-ons.
I don't really know what a good yearly profit figure for mod creators is, tbh, but I can tell you that $30k a year profit selling skins would have been a crap year for me in the vB world, and I've seen nothing close to that in the XF world...and don't expect to for years to come, still. XF essentially lost the last year (when it hurt them the most) and at the same time, drove many away that are just now slowly returning.
I have several $30 mods installed on my site right now and they are all worth it. There are other $30 mods out I haven't installed that are worth it too like bookmarks and social connect. There are free mods on my list that I think are worth $30 but not everyone here is all about profit, for instance, all my addons and styles are free, it's only when people ask me for custom work that I earn anything. But yeah if you see on my list I also have plenty of addons I paid for the development for and several addons that others have pitched in to donate as well. What's missing from this list? Freaking DBTech addons that's what!!!
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You need only search the Custom Service/Development Requests forum:
Yeah, I would imagine it would be difficult to find a customer to pay hourly - very risky business there. That's where project management skills come in and one has to decide how much it would take for him/her to invest the time to develop a particular product. And if the customer agrees, you have yourself a sale.
I make less than half of that per year
