Hey,
Wanted to know what you’re going to be doing about this: http://marketblog.envato.com/news/item-support-sustainability-authors-clarity-buyers/
I think it’s awesome, personally.
I think it’s dumb for some people who buy themes to expect lifetime support on how to update their theme, read the documentation, or read the bits about the VC plugin. Some people refuse to LEARN how to manage their site, server, content and expect the theme authors to teach them how to use WP, which is “insane” from point of view of the theme developer. At any other business a single support ticket would cost more than the theme price.
I think all products purchased on the cheap ($50 for a massive theme is still an insane deal) should have limited time support, and major major version updates a year later should be a modest update cost; this makes it worthwhile for the theme developers to stay in businesss, continue doing upgrades and not walk away. Two themes from ThemeForest I had used, are no longer available for download – Dead. FINI. If the new model had been in place, the author/dev might still be updating that theme.
A perfect example is that the theme devs had to do massive work for the theme to support WP 3.9; that wasn’t part of the purchase that people made for the product last August 2013.
It’s like a new car — should car makers give you a new car every year. No.
Folks like WOO have annual programs which help pay for ongoing development, upgrades, and support (and not as good as TagDiv, I should say). So, unless I’m reading the post wrong, it does seem like a good idea from a business point of view.
(Of course, I’m an “old guy” who has been doing graphic design since I was a teenager in the late 70s, and webdev since March 1995…. so, I tend to err on the side of business owners ….)
Totally agree, Chris. I just wanted to know so I could budget for whatever TagDiv decide upon. I’m a business owner myself and fully support Envato’s move.
Yes, I agree. I would love to pay TagDiv more for their great support.
Hi all,
I think the new announcement does not affects us or you guys. We already provide support for 6 months and from my experience only a very very small number of customers still need support after 6 months.
Radu O.
Yay! Thanks for feedback RADU O!
I think the main takeaway from the announcement is to ensure the hit-and-run theme authors stick around to actually provide support. This should help curtail some of the copycat developers who (seem to) steal the CSS from one company then do their own version of it (seriously, there are like 20 versions of the same menu layout, footer layout, etc. on there for some theme “types”).
Now, maybe Envato should stop pushing their updater on folks until it works correctly đ (do they even still do that?).
