The Firestarter and Feistyred Agree
Oct 3rd, 07 | 8 remarksI recently discovered (and started plowing through) the blog of fellow Wordpress designer, Adii. One of the articles that really caught my attention was in regard to free “premium” themes. Adii voices his concerns about Small Potato’s announcement to release premium themes for free, arguing that it’s not a good business model.
I have to say, I’m with Adii on this one, but for a slightly different reason…
I think there’s a void in the market for quality premium themes, and providing them could be a profitable endeavor. I have no stats to back this up, but guys like Nate and Brian are already making a success of this concept. One could even argue that Brian shook things up in the WP community, and got other themers to think in a broader sense about premiums. This is one scenario where competition has spurred growth.
But free premium themes? First of all, it’s a contradiction in terms. Second, I raise an eyebrow at the possibility of one individual spoiling the potential of the market for others. (I say “the potential” because Wordpress theming as an industry is so new - no one really knows where it will end up.)
Take for example the designer who sets his prices at rock-bottom to corner the market. He thinks he’s going to make money in volume. Quality begins to go out the window and he spins his wheels to keep up with the demand. Ultimately he lowered the perceived value of his work. For that, he will he never see a decent ROI, and he’s making life difficult for every competitor in the market because the public now believes that design as a product is less valuable.
No one wins in this situation. That designer is working harder, for less, and other designers have to work harder to reverse the effects he created. I know, because I used to work for “that designer”.
While I have tremendous respect for Small Potato’s work (and part of me is even excited to see what he comes up with), I also have concern about how his decision will affect designers trying to make a living using Wordpress (and/or premium themes) as a foundation for their businesses.
Charity - I didn’t even consider the impact (on the premium WP theme market) of SP’s decision to release the “free” premium themes… I have to agree with you on this one though - but I’m not overly fussed about it at all.
In the end quality is only quality if it is recoqnized as such by the people that download the premium themes. And unfortunately people won’t associate something that’s free with something of superior quality… WPDesigner is a potential gold mine, but this is not the best decision SP has ever made…
Oct 3, 07 | 11:06 amAm I correct in thinking that the terms of the licence under which WordPress is released mean that any derivative works (including themes and plug-ins) should be published under the same licence (i.e. without charge)?
Surely this is what the whole hoo-hah to do with sponsored themes was about - and why Matt decided in the end to pull them from the DB?
Correct me if I’m wrong though - I’ve never been one for the politics of creativity!
Oct 3, 07 | 1:25 pmAdii - Good point. I suppose it’s human nature to think “Well if it’s free it must not be that great.” It’s too bad, because guys like SP, Kyle Neath and many more HAVE put out quality work, for free. I just fail to see how regularly giving away “premium” themes is a better business model than selling them.
Paul - Could a theme even be considered a derivative work of Wordpress? I think the license terms would apply to plugins, because they’re built specifically to hook into Wordpress, and enhance the functionality in some way. A theme (though it might be designed with WP in mind), is basically just a layout coded with XHTML and CSS, and could thereby be laid on top of any framework, or no framework at all. So I’m not sure the license would apply to themes would it? Maybe I’m way off here. Honestly I’d have to look it up.
Oct 3, 07 | 3:34 pmPaul, I believe the whole sponsored themes issue was more a question of users not knowing that the links were there, or didn’t have the knowledge on how to remove them. It really diluted the quality of free themes, and I think that was more the issue. A friend of mine had dinner with Matt one night, and said that Matt had no issue with people charging for premium (and quality) themes.
After all, I developed a few of those, and did so with the intent of swaying people away from other platforms like Joomla and Drupal, and into WordPress. It would be silly of Matt to condone that, because after all, my premium themes are directly promoting his product.
Oct 4, 07 | 10:08 amYeah Paul, I’m with Brian on this one. Premium themes can only contribute positively to the WP community and I see no reason why Matt or anyone from the WP crew would have a problem with it.
Fact is, designers like Brian and myself, spend a bucketload of time and effort in developing these premium themes and surely we deserve to make a living (more like a lot of pocket money) from our work? :) I also agree with Brian that designers who’s designing for Wordpress is essentially promoting Wordpress and the quality of designs available will definitely persuade more users to switch to the awesomeness called Wordpress! :)
Oct 4, 07 | 2:46 pmFirstly, just let me say that I agree with you Adii when you say that it’s not the best decision that SP ever made. Having said that, I really respect the guy for everything he’s done to help elevate the status of the Wordpress platform - and if he wants to release a free ‘premium’ theme then I won’t hold it against him!
Thank you for clarifying Matt’s stance on the matter Brian. As I said, I’ve never been one for creative politics!
I should probably mention at this point that I spend a huge amount of money on ‘premium’ template products each year. I have expensive subscriptions with RocketTheme, YooTheme and JoomlaDesigns.co.uk for my Joomla development - and also a membership with Dream Templates. I fork out in excess of $800 a year for these, so please don’t think that I’m against premium products for an open-source platform!
It did occur to me though… Before all the premium Joomla providers started charging, they gave away two or three ‘free’ premium themes - to drive interest and traffic to their site, and increase the level of subscribers once they were ready to go commercial. Perhaps this is what SP has in mind too?
Oct 5, 07 | 11:31 pmWhat a great discussion! Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on this.
Paul - I think giving away themes is actually a really good idea when it comes to generating buzz and driving traffic. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re right on target that it could be one of SP motive’s. Also, I’d be lying if said I wasn’t using that same strategy for the eventual release of my own premium theme. ;)
But I think caution should be taken with the word premium, and maybe that’s what it really boils down to for me. I do not try to promote my free themes as premium, despite preconceived notions of lesser quality just because they’re free. The reason is because I don’t want to confuse or deceive potential (future) customers.
When I’m ready to release my first premium theme, it’ll be described as such. But how does one make the distinction (to customers) between a paid premium theme and a free “premium” one? (Maybe that’s something Brian could answer.)
I think it would become confusing and not only that, but how could a designer justify to customers why they’re charging for one and not another - or ever convince someone to buy for that matter?
Maybe SP knows what he’s doing, maybe not. Either way I admire his work and appreciate his contributions to the WP community…
But these are all questions I’m willing to get to the bottom of! :)
Oct 6, 07 | 9:26 amGreat thread indeed! Template Monster has a rather large category of paid templates for Wordpress, so I would imagine any legal questions re: paid templates should have been answered by now.
Without the free template market, and quite a few high quality designs to inspire me, I never would have started using wordpress as a CMS and foundation to new lines of business. Free templates are something I view as a favour to other designers or DIY bloggers. Something of a loss leader to generate interest in the software and the community so that we all can get a bigger piece of the custom design work pie.
By charging a nominal fee, I’m reducing how much that loss is. Example: 1000 people downloaded a template I give away for free and only one buys it if I sell it for a fair price. I may have lost 999 downloads and that many chances to get my name out there. But if 1000 people don’t download my free template and 1 does buy, I’ve still made more money than if I’d given it away.
SP giving away free “premium” themes is no different than any of the template galleries having new content. I’m about to argue my way into a corner here, but my works still have to compete to find a place in the market. The unfortunate part is that if you feel your works are on par with the quality of theirs, if you don’t compete on price, you’ve put yourself out of the market.
I disagree b/c it is not a mutually exclusive purchasing pattern that someone would forgo yours because SP’s met their needs. Up until this thread I had never heard of SP, so obviously if I don’t google their work, I never know your product is “overly priced” compared to the competition.
As it stands I would think that Wordpress themes are synonymous with free if not custom, so the premium cost model is fighting an uphill battle towards mainstream acceptance that one more designer putting out freebies will truly affect it’s viability.
Dec 4, 07 | 11:14 pm