[nhawk]

vB not allowing paid add-ons is one of the main reasons I recently pulled all of my add-ons from the vB site.

As an example, one of the add-ons I pulled had 418 installs, 2882 downloads. Out of all of that, in 5 years I had 3 people purchase paid upgrades (total $60.00), and one donation of $15.00 for the add-on.

It reached a point where sales of the more robust version for XF (it became more robust over time) was supporting vB users. That was not fair to the XF users for me to be supporting a free vB version on their dime.

I personally offer about a 50-50 mix of free and paid add-ons for XF. So, free add-ons are still there. Just those that require constant support or will have constant updates with new or improved features are paid.

The idea that people will not purchase something unless they can test it doesn't hold water. I'm living proof of that.

With vB, what it boils down to in many cases is people hope the free version will fit their needs and if it does, they never upgrade to a paid version or even donate to help with support/updates. I know there are some developers that think the lite/paid model works, but if they really pay attention to what is happening they will discover many more people are using the lite version than the paid version and they are losing money by supporting a lite version.