Old plugin broke, new one is stripped down

Would you have preferred the plugin to be abandoned permanently?

I’d ask that you rate this plugin for what it offers now rather that what it was. Many features in the new version have been improved upon, performance has been increased and the plugin has been stripped down for good reason.

As an aside, the page addon was “pay what you want” for a while but even that was abused (all it required was an email address and people were inputting pretend ones) so I had to take that down and ask for a small fee instead.

Users like you contributed to me dumping the plugin in the first place.

I for one am very glad for the new version. For a free plug-in you can’t beat its simplicity. The new CPT makes it much easier to create a download and actually use different versions of a download.

The add-on is great too and for a small fee if you use something why not donate to the developer who has to spend his time with support issues as well.

Thanks for keeping the plug-in going Mike!

“I’d ask that you rate this plugin for what it offers now rather that what it was”.

I came here after the old and awesome version stopped working with WP 3.6.
I wenth through the import-data-plugin => install new plugin process just to end with other errors. And that’s kinda OK, I had what I paid for, I would have to check the source code and whatever.

What I am less OK with is the now getting common custom to create stuff to grab (unaware) future customers and then remove functionality previously available and make it premium.
I know, I know, modern marketeers do this, but I am one of the old guard, when spades were called spades at day 1 and let the actual quality of products grind paying customers and not building an install base that suddenly face the ransom: “now pay or uninstall and redo all the setups again”.

“Users like you contributed to me dumping the plugin in the first place”.

I have several registered and paid high price software: Delphi, Freehand,FXTester, Lightwave (cost = several thousands) and electronics analog simulation proprietary softwares.
They were all forthcoming and straight in them being premium at day zero.

Developers like you contributed to me starting to dump concealed-marketing plug ins in the first place.

There’s plenty of WP developers charging for $49-$400 a plug in / theme without resorting to stripping functionality post-release.

@dfumagalli I could have quite easily kept the old version abandoned and made a new repository, but this was easier for me. I made my intentions clear months in advance on my blog.

>There’s plenty of WP developers charging for $49-$400 a plug in / theme without resorting to stripping functionality post-release.

You paid nothing for this plugin. You cannot compare it to premium plugins.

How about your downgrade to the legacy version and fix it yourself.

The moment you start charging for what was included in the old version, then it becomes premium. Nothing wrong creating a premium plug in, I only object in the “release full plug in first, then remove the most prominent part of it”.

As for fixing it, I am set already.

Well I’m gobsmacked. The amount of work that goes into support, building, and maintaining plugins like this (for free) and you complain over a $5 addon (which itself was rewritten during the last major update) and damage the plugin’s reputation with a 1 star review without even trying the new version’s NEW features out fully. False sense of entitlement.

Hopefully you found an alternative plugin because it makes me sick that users like yourself get to benefit from my work.

Good day.

I would have tried it fully, if only it:

1) the new version worked, at least when manually specifying the path to the download. It didn’t. No problem, this happens but don’t blame me for not trying it fully.

2) it’d been certainly easier to see the full potential if the plug in was somewhat complete. Most plug in developers release a well usable version of their work so that people may make their minds and propose the premium part as something providing extra features. They don’t remove pieces.

3) If you are not ready to withstand criticism (caused by your own choices by the way), then do like Simple Press and other developers do, and have it hosted somewhere where people can’t express their opinions.
Or just sell your services advertising by customers mouth words like I do for my Mediawiki plug ins.

4) Yes, considering the website with the plug in was providing free documentation and open source software (a video game fansite), I replaced it with a suitably free other plug in.

So basically, your advice is to build everything for free, and when it does everything, build the shitty extra niche ideas afterwards for little monetary gain just to keep the a*holes happy. Sounds very sustainable. ??

See, the one using swear words and struggling to get $5 paid for his work is not me nor those who indeed release a basic yet functional product and then advertise payware add ons, a la carte services, paid consultancy and technical support. I develop vertical solutions, they develop free and fully functional stuff like Simple Press, PaidMembershipPro or (to stay closer to this plug in domain) Easy Digital Downloads and then charge on support, extensions, customizations.
For me and those developers this “very sustainable” solution works well enough to bring in the grands a month. I don’t see your alternate $5 business strategy doing as good.

Anyway each one his own, go your way, I’ll go mine. Farewell.

You are comparing a side-project to a full-on business (EDD) which employs developers full time. The ‘premium’ page addon is an alternative to the ‘donation’ model and so far its been much more successful. Obviously we’re not talking EDD profitability, but as I said; side-project.

If users don’t want to change from legacy to the new version, they don’t have to. The legacy version is readily available. I even changed the version number to 1.0 so upgrades wouldn’t be forced.

Street smart marketer wouldn’t have done that ??

Just a small reminder to all parties, please check the egos at the door and keep things polite.

@dfumagalli FYI I’ve made the page add-on “pay what you want” again, however future addons will be premium. You can get it here: https://mikejolley.com/projects/download-monitor/add-ons/page-addon/