They are getting smarter too. I found this new one https://www.wookit.io/ that actually hooks right into standard Wordpress updates. So it’s basically a replacement for Woothemes helper.

Hi Terence.

I do not recall ever being an affiliate of JigoShop. I was an affiliate of WooThemes and I lost income because of it.

Did that frustrate me at the time? Of course it did. Companies such as WooThemes contact bloggers like myself and ask for their products to be reviewed and encourage me to join their affiliate program in order to earn money from it. I then invest a lot of time reviewing products and building small content websites in order to generate affiliate income. So when they turn around and then close the program without warning it is very frustrating.

However, these two issues are not related. If you look back to my original articles about what WooThemes did to JigoShop, you can see I had the exact same opinion and it happened long before WooThemes closed their affiliate program. So please do not put one and one together and get three. You are making assumptions as why I feel strongly about this topic.

Additionally, did when did I say my own business model was based on affiliation? Yes, I do make some money through affiliate marketing, but my online income is not dependent on it. I have published books, I freelance for many websites, and I do a lot of consultation. Again, you seem to be making a lot of assumptions about me to give your own position more weight.

I do agree that past incidents have shown that when it comes to GPL, you live by the sword and you die by it. However, the whole WordPress community would be worse off if everyone just resold everyone else’s products as their own; and that is what concerns me.

Kevin

How about this ~ https://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/

Kevin, the invective “cold and heartless way they screwed over JigoShop”, and the use of words like “scummy” and “underhanded”, are not helpful in understanding the real issues here, and seem to tell us more about your personal reaction to losing your affiliate income, than they do about GPL licensing.

Its called “business”, and if you are a good businessman ~ or businesswoman ~ turning down the offer of $10k means you will have studied what might happen, and you may, or may not have a contingency. Either way, that is a decision best taken BEFORE you spend years of time and money creating a business based purely on a GPL license.

But of course, there’s nothing to say that being a good developer makes you a good businessman, and the wisdom of hindsight is priceless.

My own view is; for a business to survive and prosper in the WordPress ecosystem, over the long term, it cannot simply sell the products of others ~ strange you see that in the activities of “wpavenger” and “gplclub”, but not your own affiliate business ~ and it should provide additional services of substantial value, such as tutorials, support, and customization.

I do know what you are saying Jon.

I don’t like the way that companies will draw customers in under a certain pricing model and then switch things around later. WooThemes did that and I can understand why so many people were annoyed with them (i.e. switching from unlimited licenses to yearly licenses). At that point, a customer is invested in the product and their company may depend on it so simply choosing another product is not always easy.

I have never been a big fan of WooThemes. For a number of reasons, such as the way they handled the spike from JigoShop to WooCommerce, to the way they closed their affiliate program and cost affiliates like myself who had promoted them for years a lot of money.

The pricing of plugins is always subjective. I can maybe justify paying $500 for a plugin if my website has enough traffic and the plugin can affect my website positively. Others could not justify paying $10 for the same plugin.

And a lot of it comes down to economies of scale.

Take a plugin such as Visual Composer. It sells for only $33, but with the functionality it offers, the developers could justify selling it for $99. However, they have over 4,500 sales on codeCanyon and that is partly due to how affordable it is.

Now consider a plugin that is not suitable for every WordPress user. Perhaps something to do with custom post types that only developers will use. They could also sell the plugin for $30, but developers are usually willing to pay more for products that help with functionality etc, so they could lose money by pricing it so low.

In this regard, I believe pricing is sometimes more of an art than a science.

You make a fair point Kevin, and for what it’s worth, I do agree with you that if one is not willing to pay the asking price for a product, they shouldn’t use other means to go about obtaining that same product in unethical ways. In that regard, I am in full agreement with your article and the end point you reach. I guess I was just highlighting a perspective that the particular model that WooThemes have adopted (and by extension imposed on their once happy customer base) has caused a lot of discomfort in the WP community and there is a justification for it. My comment was merely pointing out that the emergence of entities such as the ones I mentioned is almost a natural next step from a change such as the one WooThemes adopted, ultimately getting to the point that if plugin developers start charging hugely inflated amounts for their products, it eventually does hurt the WP community, which was mean’t to be an open source platform that everyone could add to. But that is another debate. Kudos on the good article.

I don’t think Ferraris are priced fairly. Doesn’t give me the right to steal one. Perhaps an extreme analogy, but I don’t think being unhappy with the price of a product gives justifies stealing it.

Also, you need to understand that it isn’t WooThemes that are losing out here. These websites are reselling WooCommerce extensions that were developed from third-party sellers. Frequently, these extensions make up the bulk of a developer’s income. Which means these stores could be reducing a developers income from $5,000 per month to $3,000 per month; a significant amount, particularly if you have a family to support.

My advice to people who are not happy with the way WooThemes operates is to not use any of their products.

I think it all boils down to fair pricing. I am not at all surprised at the rise of “Robin Hood” like organisations to offer the grossly over priced premium plugins at more reasonable prices minus the support. Woothemes have changed their model in such a way that they are forcing their customers now to pay for support they may not even need. They have completely alienated the developer community by removing developer licensing and and all but admitted they have made these changes in the name of greed. I am sorry, but it’s their monopoly tactics that ultimately harm the Wordpress community because their exorbitant pricing models set a precedent that other plugin developers might choose to follow if they are shown any more support for their decision. Wordpress premium theme and plugins sales are kept sustainable by the sheer size of it’s market place, which allows for premium quality products to be sold a relatively low prices due to economies of scale. I don’t mind paying for a good plugin. I don’t even mind paying for only a year’s support for the plugin if the price is right. I do mind getting robbed in broad daylight for it. That, in my opinion, is what WooThemes are doing with their pricing, and they create the space for the likes of WP Avengers and GPLclub.

I disagree. This has nothing to with affiliation.

Care to expand on this point?

I am sorry for the long delay in responding to this comment Brett (and to Tim’s comment below). I did not get an email notification about these comments at the time.

It is interesting that this is such a hot topic.

I speak with developers a lot since I write a lot of plugin and theme reviews online. What I have seen over the last year is an increase in the number of WordPress products that require a license key in order to work. This goes against the GPL policy of not restricting usage; however developers seem to be concerned about other people stealing their products.

I think WooThemes gets a lot of the press about this issue, however, I imagine smaller developers would be hit the most if another person decided to offer their products at a fraction of the price.