Sad To See Wincustomize Bite The Corporate Dust Too !

the massive amount of bandwidth that is required to run this site isn't free either.

Contibute to the site and you won't have to pay, If not, and you are useing this site enough to hit the cap, it must be worth something to you. Buy something, subscribe, whatever. It is a small price to pay.

I understand where you coming from, but as I learned site maintainance and bandwidth are not free and eventually has to be paid for. Other sites with skins, if you haven't noticed, have avertizing all over the place and the infamous pop up window. Even that is a not bad considering how much you get from the site.

So the ads, as we know with the dot.com bubble, do not pay much (or as much as it should be) and if you look up how much a web site host asks for bandwitdth a month you will see that a image, file heavy site like this costs allot of money.

So there you have it!!!
Any questions??? Comments???

"forcing you to pay" damn life's tough anymore. Loved the free lunch - how dare Stardock try to cover costs.

sigh

How do I contact Wincustomize by email.
NO WHERE is their address posted.

good stuff is hard to come by, this site has some of the best . the best to look at the best to complain about (boo hoo) personaly its a lot cheaper then just aout any intertainment going and theirs alwals food for thought so why not pony up a little change. you know what they say what were once vises are now habits or the first tast is free kid !!

People really need to look at what you get from this site for a one time purchase for the most part,A night at the movies was $35.00 for me and thats one night,a progam from this site was a lot less and will last a lot longer.(Just a thought)

Brett: https://www.wincustomize.com/index.asp?Cmd=about

I agree with what you're all saying. Buying the software wouldn't be a problem if I had the money ... some of us don't ! And finding work isn't the easiest thing to do when you're disabled like I am. Life's tough ... I know bandwidth costs are high and WC has to take these measures in order to survive ... but it is a shame that one of the few things that I could do for free suddenly isn't the same anymore.

I know what you mean. But ultimately, *someone* has to pay for the bandwidth.

Stardock isn't "the government". The money that pays for this site comes fairly directly from Object Desktop users.

As the cost of the site doubled, then trippled, and quadrupled over what it was originally was, the question becomes straight forward:

Do we raise the price of Object Desktop to pay for WinCustomize or do we try to get those who are heavily using WinCustomize to help pay for it?

So how would one contribute to the site without having to pay ? Yes .. money is the issue here .... but since I'm confined to the two wheels of my wheel-chair ...... time is something I CAN part with.

looks like that damn WB section is getting too fat to me.*cough* Oh, I meant wallpaper section, yeah, that's what I meant, really...

(I should know better than this...)


This whole place is a business expense; cheap advertising all around, right? I mean, what would you have to pay to get this much exposure on other sites, with the added community word-of-mouth? Aren't the people who are most heavily using this place are SD users/subscribers? the content would make it seem so. It ain't looking like FPN, anyway.

I'm not purposely being an ass... it just seems counter to my image of the place. I would have thought this was more of a 'business expense/PR thing' than a charitable endeavor. A fine bit'o positive reinforcement to those interested in licensing SD technology, as well, i would imagine.

(or at minimum it could be a bit of penance to the community for the millions of unpaid man-hours spent making those SD apps look so fine ...)

Logic would dictate that the heaviest downloaders would be folk that had purchased a Stardock product. In at least some cases, however, that has not been the case.

We have had not one but several long threads from users of either a Warez version of a program or a shareware version complaining of being limited to downloading a mere 100Mb of files. Now, providing a Warez user with unlimited downloads of skins is as welcome to me as an obscene phonecall made with the charges reversed!

Ok, I only ever reversed the charges on you once, Larry.
Bah, you're gonna hold that over me forever, aren't you?.......

Jaz4eva - So how would one contribute to the site without having to pay ?

origionally the download cap wasnt going to effect anyone of apprentice level or above. i think that is still the plan, but am not certain.

assuming it is, being active on the site (message board), helping others, commenting on skins, etc are ways to get promoted.

if you are feeling artistic there is also learning how to create skins and wallpapers

bakerstreet - This whole place is a business expense; cheap advertising all around, right?

from what stardock have said, this site costs more to run that it generates in new users / revenue. so that weakens the buisness expense argument.

as for heavy downloaders, using Jafo as an example (someone who has been here since the begining and has to download nearly all the walls) he says he has only just passed the 100meg limit.

not long ago there was a thread by ofaj, who i beleive was supposed to have downloaded over 1gig but hadnt purchased any software.

two examples is hardly a full accounting, but from what has been said the paying users often arent the heaviest downloaders.

bakerstreet - or at minimum it could be a bit of penance to the community for the millions of unpaid man-hours spent making those SD apps look so fine

a) assuming the site costs more to run than it generates, then we already have penance

i feel that OD is outstanding value for money, so more penance?

i see the logic to your comments, but what i have read suggests the facts dont support them.

Bakerstreet,

Yes you would think that WinCustomize would be a great marketing tool and that alone would account for the expenses involved in running the site. But as feline has helped point out that is not the case.

Sales through this site do not even pay for bandwidth. And dont forget about the cost of employees and hardware. Thank goodness we have a bunch of great people who volunteer their time freely to admin this site!

Well what about Stardock's overall sales you ask? Same there, Stardock sales have been pretty steady. So from before WinCustomize to now Stardock sales have remained just about the same. But our costs have risen dramatically.

Yes WinCustomize gives more exposure to our products. But has it increased sales? Some but not enough to offset the costs. Since our products are available as shareware most people tend to be content with using just the shareware version.

We did a test about 2 weeks ago where we turned off the library for non-paying customers. As it turns out they accounted for over 80% of our bandwidth usage.

feline....you were vaguely correct [as always...], yes I was one of the first to sign on here....but my DL count is about 57meg, I think.....although I'm assuming that doesn't include the stuff I dl for moderation and checking for content, etc.....I don't think that's included, because there's a fair bit of that, eg....today, so far, 2 Winamp skins....not upped by their original author, and 2 LiteSTEP themes....one OK, the other a wrong zip, total, about a meg and a half....and none of it for 'keeping'...and I haven't even dropped in on the walls......yet...

As a public-access user, however, and bearing in mind that I 'do my own stuff', and also frequent other sites [as others do]....Day One to today....about 57 meg.....

I'm still always a bit mystified, though, how someone can bemoan a payment of 'a few dollars....10, 20, 30, whatever' for something that they are clearly involved/interested in, but at the same time are utilizing a service [ISP] and machinery [computer] that 'must' cost considerably more....

feline....you were vaguely correct [as always...]

/me *bows*
i was going from memory, since i thought that was what you had said quite recently.

as for the cost question:

theory a) they are kids who's parents pay for the computers and net. so they dont have any costs except for the subscription. so suddenly the subscription looks expensive, not having any context.

theory the computer + net eats up all disposable income, so there isnt really any left over, which is close to where i am *sigh*

Theory b applies to me.

Well I'm not the artistic type but I am a lil' creative so I'll see what I can do. Any advice on how to make wallpapers, skin, etc ?

AHHH !! I thought I'd be past my 100mb limit .... but I'm not even half way. Any suggestions ?