First I want to say I’m glad we’re having this conversation, and that you’re willing to entertain some of the points I’m making.
Nob back to the regularly scheduled program, haha.
Yup! I think we’re more in agreement than either of us think.
My analogy with the free-market economy was mostly just that, an analogy.
To quote Wikipedia,
“…a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority.”
Which is what I believe we’re seeing here. Again, just an analogy. Roblox doesn’t really step in much to influence prices (except for their 30% cut, but that can be alikened to tax). And the selling of plugins is kind-of reminiscent of the supply-demand equilibrium. Higher cost = less buyers. And you’re absolutely right that developers ought to find a price that strikes the balance between a good cost and a good value. And of course if they don’t do that, they’re going to feel the reprecussions for their own actions.
I see your point, what I’m saying sort of plays into my previous statement about sales.
In the real world, companies have to advertise their products. Here, most of the really popular plugins either have a really good description or a good DevForum post, it’s what makes them attractive, as I think you somewhat implied.
Granted, I’m somewhat biased. If none of the popular plugins I look at have a specific feature I want (or if they’re too expensive), then I just make my own plugin – that’s actually how most of the plugins I’ve created came to be. If you know scripting, it’s actually a surprisingly straightforward process.
In any case, while I realize that doing research is impossible sometimes, I don’t see why you would purchase plugins that have no context or rep to them, even if they advertise having that feature.
I’m not terribly sure about this one. I may be wrong, but I don’t think any country mandates refunds for customers, unless there’s something like a mass-recall. In most cases that I’ve seen, returns are handled exclusively by the producer, unless you’re thinking about doing a middle-man thing like Amazon does, which I’d say is reasonable. And this is often done because it’s easier to just issue a refund, rather than having to deal with a customer that is stirring up a stink. In other words, it’s often part of the business model.
As far as allowing you to test plugins, not sure how that would be accomplished in a secure-for-the-developer fashion. The general rule of thumb I go by (mostly for exploit-proofing) is that if the client has access to source code on a machine-level, then the exploiter has the full capacity to steal it. I would apply that same concept to this situation.
