How free can be free stuff?

actually, this site is subscription based. people have to pay a minimal 10$ fee to access the features like download of freely available stuff and asking for support/requests.

this subscription is not ther eto pay for the releases but to pay the hosting, software etc… this is minimal, people do not understand how it cost to have such a site with thousands of hits per hour… (actually more than 25000 hits per day)

anyway, i was questioning myself at giving a Freebies section with free stuff for registered users, the ones who do not pay for the access. this spring, i had the site subscription-free, no payment needed, and there not that much downloaders anyway.. there is more downloaders now that the site is paid, so go figure…

people always whine when they have to pay, these leechers i do not care. what is important is to have coders and designers like you being respected for their work and retributed when it was obvious the work worth it. That being said, i decided to drop the subscription for coders willing to release their work here. I had a fight with the sponsor — which left after the fight — and i decided to review all the subscriptions… now there is only one.

but i’d like to debate the paid logic with the Acolytes, the ones who are to release stuff on the site… what are your thoughts about how it have to work?

there will be a « releases system » soon by the hand of Drew, a commercial script that let you have your own releases paid or free on the site, with a licenses tracker for your own stuff… and it will be way more productive and efficient than anyother systems, even the one from Jelsoft or aMember… so i suppose that your suggestions will help us release a better engine — each request could be an option, not hardcoded… 🙂

so yes, what do you think of the free stuff vs subscriptions?