I’m not judging in any way, just listing some observations about the developer/Marketplace situation in the recent years.
4.5 tightened the rules drastically. Result: several developers left for good.
price increases. Developments needs a self-hosted installation and possibly a demo website. It’s now 850 + 300 annually. Someone starting out as developer really needs some killer products to earn that back and then generate profits. Cloud testing of resources would make it even more expensive (+1,788 annually).
Shift/changes to cloud. The lower tiers don’t have the ability to install third-party products. This decreases the reach and makes running independent third-party shops less useful/profitable.
Signatures turned off. No possibility for passive advertisement through community posts.
Limited compatibility field. Sales can only be created for one version, limiting the income.
I have no magical solutions to offer, but are improvements for this something we could put on the table for 2023?
Currently, I am not very optimistic. We only have a handful of active developers left with continued announcements of departures. If it is still working well for some (?), it’s probably because of a large set of files and existing customers with renewals. But I can’t see how new developers would want to get involved in the current situation, replacing the ones who left or even growing the marketplace.
I understand the costs and downsides for IPS. Paying for code reviews, chargeback fees and of course all the support issues with third-party resources. But then again: Looking at the broader field of online software: all the big players strive with and in part because of a flourishing third-party marketplace. So, improvement could easily be a “win-win-win” situation for IPS, developers and IPS customers.
(I would have some suggestions myself but I don’t want to push the topic in a specific direction, so I am leaving it at the problem statement for now.)