Therein lies the issue, this is the same way people advocate piracy of software, “we can’t afford it, it’s too expensive”. Perception is very much individual. Clearly from some comments on here, some think even $20 or $5 for an addon is “robbery” as “it should all be free”. Me personally, I can’t afford grove, so I look to free alternatives to get my trees & grass. I can afford HardOps, so I pay to encourage the developers.
I grant I have a horse in this race, speaking as a developer of over 30 years in the business, (retired), so I appreciate the work involved. Sometimes, only other developers can, (i lost count of the number of times I was told, “but isn’t easy, can’t you just?”.
Another factor is some developers may seemingly over-charge, based on their perception of likely sales, others may say, “better 100 at $15 than 5 at $50”. More people can afford it, the price is low enough that, unless you are dirt poor, it’s a “no-brainer”. Then again, if you’re dirt poor, your probably running hardware that can’t handle 2.80 anyway, as it would require a semi-decent system & GPU. So if you can afford $600 for a computer, you can probably stretch to $15 for an addon.
I guess they are not percieved as too expensive by a lot of people. And when compared to addons of other 3D software they are relatively cheap. I mean the top selling one is 60$ and the second and third are around 80.
Now imagine if they weren´t 60$ but 600$. I think very many people would simply share it.
I did some napkin math:
2 months of work, 500 clients, 10 euros per hour (less than you get from sweeping floors), 30% tax, ZERO insurance: if you fail, you die. Y is how much you make, X is price of addon Y = 500 * X * 0.7 - 320 * 10
Break even: X = 1600/350 = 9 euros for addon
4 months of work, absolute minimum for expert level work, median sales (pulled from a hat) for Blender addons. 100 clients. Still zero insurance. Y = 100 * X * 0.7 - 640 * 20
Break even: X = 12800/70 = 182 euros for addon
This is ignoring other costs completely. Most freelancers, who are still around and kicking, use a x2 multiplier. Operating on zero profit means you get wiped out immediately if something doesn’t go 100% right.
I´m not sure about this but i guess alot of addons are allready shared via some torrent or however kids share and pirate stuff these days.
I just think that with rising price more people would do so. At the moment at 60 bucks I don´t think most people from richer countries who earn money with Blender will waste time to find a shared version. with aprice at 600 this would probably be very different.
So I guess it is up to the developer to find some good balance.
How much I’m willing to spend depends mostly on how much I’m going to use it on paying projects. For instance, I had been using the free version of Archipack for a long time but on a recent project decided to bite the bullet and buy the Pro version. And so while it feels like spending a lot of money now, I know I’m going to use it on nearly every paid project for the foreseeable future, so I’m definitely getting my money’s worth. and every project I use it on is paying far more than the cost of the addon anyway.
On the other hand, as much as I’d love to own Zbrush, I’m not working on anything that would justify spending that much when I can use Blender’s sculpting tools for my hobby projects.
To be honest, at $60, I would really have to be able to justify buying it, as that is a lot of money to me now I no longer work. As you say, striking a balance is the trick, certainly there aren’t many who can justify $600 on an addon to a free program, but if that enables them to do their business quicker and more effectively, then it becomes worth it.
It was the same with Lightwave plugins (addons), some were free, some “affordable”, others very much for the studios and freelancers alone, it’s certainly not unique to Blender.
Yes, that´s why I meant people whose job is using Blender to make money.
If you don´t make enough money, well, just torrent it if possible. It is free after all and it would be a perversion to use a GPL and then complain about it getting shared.
Even as a hobbyist, it’s this mentality that got me to buy Hops & BoxCutter, I don’t think I can imagine using Blender without them now, so they have been worth the outlay. As I said in a previous comment, everything has it’s price. Is the price worth what you get to you? If so, it’s worth it, if there is no obvious return for you, then no, it isn’t worth it. It’s very much a personal thing though given the huge scope of the 3D world, so I don’t think one can deal in absolutes in terms of “value”.
I think the Blender cloud is the closest thing the BF has to a capitalist ideal. The reason is that they are providing a genuine product that provides a stream of content and even addons, you pay by the month to get access to new stuff. The one difference from plans from commercial vendors is that the BF won’t take your access to what you have on your machine should you stop paying.
People will pirate 99 cent Google Play apps, so the perception that anything digital should be free, because it’s not an actual physical item is widespread and unaffected by price. They don’t take into account the costs needed to make the content they are pirating, developer salaries, the time cost, the cost of software needed to produce it, the power bill, ect… Unfortunately, there are some entire countries where the people see paying for software as a foreign concept, so the piracy rate in those areas are close to 100 percent.
This doesn’t even go into the factor provided by people who think money itself is on its way out and we will have our Star Trek world where you can literally have anything you want with no effort.
This is an Open Source community, community could be responsible for replacing corresponding images/asset with inconvenient license.
Anyway, I doubt that people want to do this (start to sharing addons) while prices stay at a reasonable value.
Obviously if it is not GPL then it is not GPL and you can not use it unless you´re a pirate or pay for it.
Regarding my models: I don´t care what you do with my models and things if you get a hold of it. My addons can be downloaded for free from my website and if you somehow manage to get my models (which will not be via me) you will have to take it up with the clients I made them for. They can distribute them however they want to but I don´t think any one of them would do so.
Oh please, lets not jump into such judgement/conclusion. The conversation can lead into an ugly thread.
Edit: What I understand from his comments is that he is not advocating for pirating through torrents (or any other such medium if it exists) but stating the reality, in the kind of world we live in.
Yep,
After all addons are YOUR tools and while stoling devlopers revenue by torrent and sharing you are somewhat shooting yourself in the foot.
In the long run you’ll find yourself without any dev involved into making it happen. As simple as that.
