Ptilly

"Popular drummers forum". While I'm here running a forum for a small Garry's Mod gaming community. I spend $2500.00 on Garry's Mod Server Add-ons and $1000+ on XenForo add-ons and themes. Want to know what the cool thing about that is? I own every single bit of it and I can download it at any time I please.
So don't come 'Barneys Girlfriend'ing at me about what forums software I should and shouldn't use; I've ran my community model with the mindset of being able to survive without donations, but with Invision Power Board's team being greedy, and being laid off from work due to COVID, that possiblity has just now become alot slimmer. Unless you have the money to give me to spend on $200 a month for both the Garry's Mod Server, web server, and license divided up into the six month period on a month-per-month basis, I suggest you stick to your little drummers forum.

I've reviewed your account and under the circumstances, refunded that fee.
I'm unsure what domain resets have to do with renewals - there's two different dialogues seemingly occurring in this topic. To your point, however, the goal isn't to "force" renewals - that's a bad business model we've never subscribed to. The reasons for this change have been outlined elsewhere.
I am sorry you had a rough experience and we're open to ways to improve the initial transition. With that said, do note this is a one-time transition. Once done, your authorized resources will be linked to the Marketplace for seamless upgrades and maintenance moving forward.
As this topic is going in multiple directions, we're going to close it down to prevent further confusion. As always, even in cases where we can't accommodate specific feedback, we do appreciate it nonetheless, as well as your continued business!

Since it’s only been implemented for a few months already, I’ll give it a couple more months to settle in. When people start to realize the issue this causes, Invision Power Board will remove this requirement. You can mark my words :).
This type of business won’t last long.

Because not everyone has hundreds to thousands of members that can donate at every given moment. Some people are still trying to grow their forum the right way by not using freeware forums or cheaper alternatives. This also helps in the long run so you don't need to worry about converting over to a paid platform in the future...

It's not just to keep them up to date, it's also to purchase them. Once they remove this requirement I'll be renewing my license, but until then I'm being forced to stick with XenForo.

I've been around a long time too,  a lot of us have. There is no 'attack here' we're simply expressing our views. As Lindy has said in the past many times... Express our views and it's taken on board and sometimes changed. We have seen it, sometimes it doesn't change but if we do not speak out, nothing gets 'changed' and sometimes, that can be for the worse.

It's nice to see that I am not the only one, not liking the idea to not be able to download the files manually, or have an active licence in order to download files or updates to them.

"Popular drummers forum". While I'm here running a forum for a small Garry's Mod gaming community. I spend $2500.00 on Garry's Mod Server Add-ons and $1000+ on XenForo add-ons and themes. Want to know what the cool thing about that is? I own every single bit of it and I can download it at any time I please.
So don't come 'Barneys Girlfriend'ing at me about what forums software I should and shouldn't use; I've ran my community model with the mindset of being able to survive without donations, but with Invision Power Board's team being greedy, and being laid off from work due to COVID, that possiblity has just now become alot slimmer. Unless you have the money to give me to spend on $200 a month for both the Garry's Mod Server, web server, and license divided up into the six month period on a month-per-month basis, I suggest you stick to your little drummers forum.

I agree, I developed my apps for my own website, decided to share in marketplace if other find any use
I didn't develop in intention to sell lot of copies
marketplace already has filter for each minor releases, if i and IPS following best practices, then almost all cases patch update of system shouldn't break it
it's been more than a year since last minor release, if I have to keep my license active just for other to be able to download it, I will be deep net negative
this hurts the customer who purchase the plugin won't be able to install it or update it, it also hurts my reputation

Here's what I found earlier today: 
 

That right there is the deal breaker. I was going to renew my IPS license to switch things up a bit from XenForo, but after I saw that I'm not able to purchase and download new add-ons for my forums after the license expires in six months, I decided to stick with my XenForo installation. The greed from the IPS team is real and I can't believe it's come to this.

This argument makes no sense to me, because in my short time on IPB, I've been burned and scammed by purchasing numerous plugins and apps from devs that have disappeared or would submit something to get as many sales with the promise of future updates and support, only to remove their item once people start requesting the services promised.  Literally spent nearly $100 for a single app for it to be removed less than a week later and denied a refund by the dev.
So, basically nothing is changing except that I can choose to pay a now extra $190 each year to deal with this and keep my 3rd party apps updated, or I can just.. not. 
You can pretend that they're making the marketplace better for everyone, but in the end they're just punishing the ones who weren't doing anything wrong in the first place.  They think they can somehow keep people from finding ways to get the content on this site without having a license when they can't.  There are currently 3 websites at the top of google that always have the latest marketplace items and update their content almost as quickly as it gets uploaded here.

Sorry to say this is what I think as well. With that and marketplace time approval I am thinking of changing to something else.

That right there is the deal breaker. I was going to renew my IPS license to switch things up a bit from XenForo, but after I saw that I'm not able to purchase and download new add-ons for my forums after the license expires in six months, I decided to stick with my XenForo installation. The greed from the IPS team is real and I can't believe it's come to this.

You are correct, I did not include elastic search.
I'm not trying to argue with anyone, just expressing my frustration.
Every now and then there is a thread with many responses and a title like "Formus are dead" or "Facebook is taking over".
I run three sites.  I make almost no money and spend a lot of time keeping the sites active.  This is one more financial hit.
It's no wonder "Forums are dying", it's really hard for them to survive.

That's not entirely true.
Yes, I chose IPS.
They changed their business model after I chose them and am now heavily invested in them in that my sites rely on the software in its current state, including the many add-ons I have.

I think it's great that the apps are available through the ACP, I don't agree with the requirement to have an active license.  For me, there have not been any updates in a very long time.  I was looking forward to upgrading to 4.5, now that is soured by the requirement to have an active license moving forward.  I have looked at other options.  Does IPS care?  It would seem not as they indicate I am the in the minority in not maintaining my license, even though there have not been updates in a very long time.
It is true I do not understand the business reason for you doing this, but as one of the (I suspect) many people running hobby sites that don't make money, this is really hard to take.  @Lindy, you mentioned XF, as you are aware, their upgrade fees are significantly less (85 a year if you buy everything - not every 6 months, but a full year), and you do not need an active license to purchase add-ons.  The license fees here are nearly triple that if you buy most products.
I understand IPS won't be bothered by losing a small customer like me, 3 licenses, and that makes me sad.  The culture felt more welcoming when I joined 13 years ago.

so if my license expires in a week, and i just paid renewal of marketplace items for another half / full year
that means I only have access to them for a week? this on top of 20% commission you're charging developer while also require active license just to have access to marketplace
for real?

It's a bit unfair to skip over my points just to attack @Ptilly's only point as mine counteract most of your arguments. If we're going to play around with the analogy of the Cadillac, the maintenance costs should be fairly average if you only bring it in for maintenance when it really needs it and not premature oil changes or transmission flushes. And, even then, you could save quite alot by doing it yourself or hiring someone else to do it. The same could be said for software. Not everyone needs every bug fix or new feature as soon as it's available. There are bugs you may never notice unless you regularly work within a certain realm of the software. You could even fix some bugs easily yourself. If the software has a good security record, you shouldn't have to upgrade frequently to get the security patch. I've kind of already went over this before, but most security flaws aren't even that complicated and can be fixed with a few lines of code. There actually used to be one-file patches you could easily download and apply before IPS got greedy and refrained from doing this. Furthermore, Cadillacs are basically just an overpriced American car so their parts shouldn't be anything special.
To get to your point on how businesses have to make money, there are plenty of ways companies can make money without unfairly charging people for every little aspect they can think of. I'd be renewing more frequently if I didn't have to pay for renewals on apps I'm not currently using in addition to other shady business decisions IPS has implemented. Would you give into your refrigerator charging a monthly fee to cool if it meant keeping the brand in business? 🙂

Since it’s only been implemented for a few months already, I’ll give it a couple more months to settle in. When people start to realize the issue this causes, Invision Power Board will remove this requirement. You can mark my words :).
This type of business won’t last long.

"Popular drummers forum". While I'm here running a forum for a small Garry's Mod gaming community. I spend $2500.00 on Garry's Mod Server Add-ons and $1000+ on XenForo add-ons and themes. Want to know what the cool thing about that is? I own every single bit of it and I can download it at any time I please.
So don't come 'Barneys Girlfriend'ing at me about what forums software I should and shouldn't use; I've ran my community model with the mindset of being able to survive without donations, but with Invision Power Board's team being greedy, and being laid off from work due to COVID, that possiblity has just now become alot slimmer. Unless you have the money to give me to spend on $200 a month for both the Garry's Mod Server, web server, and license divided up into the six month period on a month-per-month basis, I suggest you stick to your little drummers forum.

Because not everyone has hundreds to thousands of members that can donate at every given moment. Some people are still trying to grow their forum the right way by not using freeware forums or cheaper alternatives. This also helps in the long run so you don't need to worry about converting over to a paid platform in the future...

It's okay.  I've already noticed developers are spending more effort on their own development websites where the files can be obtained without the restrictions.  Some are happy to transfer your purchase so you only have to pay for renewals on their site.  Just need to ask nicely.  In the end, I'm not going to be the one hurting and those developers won't be losing 10% profit.

This is absurd.

Yes, there are at least several reasons actually:
Renewals can be expensive, especially if you own most of the official apps. Unfortunately, you can't select which ones you don't want to renew. If you try to get around this by cancelling some, you just lost a big chunk of your investment as you now have to pay full price if you ever want them back. Hopefully, the software maintains a good security record in which you don't have to perform full upgrades frequently to have the security holes patched. You shouldn't have to upgrade to every point release that gets put out. Additionally, a properly qualified administrator should have the knowledge to be able to patch the reported exploit himself/herself (or at least know/hire someone who can). Upgrading to any of the first few releases of a major release usually isn't a good idea. It's best to wait until most of the major bugs are ironed out first. Some of us perform development (this includes content) on a local environment first before opening the community to the public. In this case, there is no rush to upgrade if bugs or newly announced functionality isn't impacting you. As @Ptilly has said above, some of us are either running a community as a hobby or have a very small member base in which having the newest and greatest features all the time isn't necessary. Not everyone needs official support to run their community. Some us are very good at troubleshooting and fixing issues ourselves without submitting a support ticket.

Because not everyone has hundreds to thousands of members that can donate at every given moment. Some people are still trying to grow their forum the right way by not using freeware forums or cheaper alternatives. This also helps in the long run so you don't need to worry about converting over to a paid platform in the future...