[Mazzlefizz]

Originally Posted by ibnuts Precisely, it would create expectations. I have a good friend with 25+ years experience as a software developer. He makes $~100k/yr. It would only take ~1700 people paying $5/month to create that much income. It would be easy to get that many people out of the 10+ million WoW subscribers. Most addon developers seem to make far less than my friend, so it's curious as to why people like you have such a hard time considering the possibility of a structured payment system. Things such as Zygor's guide and the incentives that the nUI author provides for donations makes me look forward to the future, when we have people who are more open to an actual free-market system, rather than the crapshoot that exists currently.

If I thought I could have gotten anywhere remotely close to 1700 people to subscribe per month, I would have done it when I originally proposed it right before I stopped playing WoW. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems highly unlikely. I actually did a poll on it at the time. The results, while encouraging, were nowhere remotely near what you're imagining.