Anyone being paid for the Skins.

The download limit after whci you can't download anymore is 100 megs. Now, that's a lot. After that amount, people are asked to contribute back, since they've taken so much.
Many ways to contribute:
1- the easiest: pay the subcription
2- buy a Stardock product
3- make some skins of your own and upload them here
4- interact on the site, help newbies, give feedback.

The #3 and 4 will give you the apprentice class, which will give you unlimited download.

In other words, all we asking, is some contribution back.
No, skinners won't get paid any money. The only pay skinners ask for is feedback and comments. Unfortunately, there are people who download over 100 megs, but no skinners nor anybody ever hear any feedback from them.

That is an excellent idea paxx. So many sites exist where people just take and take and never give. It's nice that here you are required to give back a little in return for all that you take.

Fortunately, I have done #'s 1, 2, 3 and 4 so I feel pretty good.

Just like the folks in AA say "You have to give it away to keep it".
You really don't need to buy anything if you can't afford it or just don't want to. You do need to contribute in some way, as mentioned above, to benefit from unlimited downloads. Hang out on the forums and contribute by participating in those topics that interest you or areas where people may have questions that you can answer. Hope that helps.

Hey Nethell9, how about a thank you to WC / Stardock for the 100 megs you have sucked so far. Bandwidth don't grow on trees!

Good heavens no, Bill...that'd be 'polite' or something.....can't have that....

my my I've seem to be in the mist of a bunch of losers, I spend most of networking experience setting up ftp server so people of a creative nature would have a place to store their file so other could download an enjoy. I think this what you would call giving back. $1,ooo.00 dollar worth of equipment, line and technology is what I've pay. So for you employee or ceo of wincustomize can go stuff yourselves. Greedy bastards.

@JAFO2 : You are on a good way from "citizen" to "exile".

Hmm, Jafo has an evil twin.

Just useless to discuss here. What did You expect as a reaction to Your rude self-introduction here ? Friendly answers ?

JAFO2, big up ya self! Seeing as u and paxx have made the only sugesstions that seem to have had half a moments thought put into them, u apper to have looked into both sides of the argument and tryed to find some rational solution to the affore mentioned problem, apart from starting a big protest that can't possibly be won or used to make a difference! So i sugest that the rest of ou quite your nancy whining and realise that your the ones that joined this site free of will, knowing that at no place did it say it was going to pay your for your work, and accept the fact that your going to just have to deal with it or go somewhere else.

JAFO2, if that is your real name , I don't know what hole you crawled out of, but if you had been reading these boards a month ago, you would have seen much discussion of the subscription topic, and you would know that this site is more strict than any regarding use of copyrighted material. I suspect that the Xbox WindowBlinds skin you refer to WAS authorized, or it would not be here (at least not with the logo on it). Furthermore, if you are referring to the Windows Media Player skin, then I know for a fact that it was permitted, if not commissioned by Microsoft. I can assure you that any skin, theme, or wallpaper here that infringes on a copyright is removed. Most of them don't make it on the site at all, but occassionally, one slips through the cracks. If you see such a thing, point it out and it will be taken care of.

As for subscriptions, they do not amount to paying for skins. Skins are free, bandwidth is not. Anyone with a block of 100 IPs must have some experience with that. A subscription comes with many benefits, but is not a requirment. The majority of these skins are available on other skins sites as well, which also have subscriptions. I suggest that you go there and enjoy the pop-up ads. However, they could shut their doors anytime, so what would you do then?

When you buy WindowBlinds, for example (not that I would expect you to pay for anything), you buy a software product. You are not buying a lifetime worth of free skins. It is up to people like me and many others here to make them for you. You are more than welcome to make your own, of course, but I suspect you do not have the patience.

Stardock provides this site as a guarentee that there will be skins for the products that you buy from them. It's a lot easier than scouring Google for WindowBlinds Skins. You're likely to sift through a lot of home improvment and dermotology sites and never even find my little personal site with skins on it.

As for your comment that it "is no brainer bad idea to force people to register products", what are you saying? Isn't this what software companies are in business for?

Ok, you've irritated me on so many different levels, I have lost my train of thought. I'm not sure if I've addresses all of your accusations, but I've done my best. I'm sure an administrator will come along and elaborate a bit more.

Oh, and nethell9, a greedy bastard is someone who trades in warez and steals software from companies who spend a lot of money developnig it. So, what kind of files do yor FTP servers contain?

Nothing to elaborate on Mike, you said it beautifully!
Take my advice and just ignore these people, they tend to slither away as they can't cope with the vast amount of intelligent people who frequent this site, or they just resort to foul language (a sure sign of the uneducated) and get booted anyway.
Have a good day.

Thanks, Boxxi, I agree. I shouldn't read these threads first thing in the morning.

JAFO2 was exiled from the other thread, before I got to this one....can I exile him twice .....just for good measure?...

Reason....his nick is obviously intentionally too close to mine, and would invite confusion.

Skinners who feel that their skins are being sold by the subscription method can easily delete their skins. Therefore, they're not being forced to "sell their skins." Allowing their skins to remain on the site shows that they do not mind the site supporting itself with subscriptions. After all, not every site can maintain itself with thousand of pornographic popups.

The $19.95 price covers bandwidth and SkinBrowser. You can download a certain amount for free, but after you have used a certain amount of bandwidth, then you have to pay for it.

Besides, if you really like a site, it $19.95/ year a lot of money? (I have noticed quite a few sites asking for "donations" or forcing a subscription to download *anything*). What is that per day? like $.06? less than $.50 per week. You can't even buy a cup of coffee for that. I could save that $.50 per week for 8 weeks and buy a Mocha Cream with it

The amount of money you spend on Coffee in a day will be enough to pay for the bandwidth for a whole month!

Hmmm....good point, MadIce!

Why is it that it enivitably comes down to "you greedy bastards"?
Where do you think the money comes from to host such a site?

This then always leads to "Well, I've set up servers before and offer free unlimited free access to such and such".

But there's a large difference in cost between a typical mom and pop ftp/web server site and one that gets so many hits and downlaods as Wincutomize and other similar large sites. This exacorbated by the fact that Wincustomize is used primarly for downloading large files rather than just serving up webpages. As Mike said, bandwith is not free. How many other sites have, over the years you seen go disappear or barely hang on from a month to month or quarter to quarter basis as they constantly have to scrounge for donations, banner adds, or the cheapest colocation plan they can finance that particular quarter.


It has to be paid somehow. The argument then always swings to "Well Stardock should pay for it all". Well, yes, Stardock could pay for it all. However, that ultimately meens a smaller pool of resources from which they can operate Wincutomize. This means they'd have to consider scaling Wincustomize back into a true Stardock "marketing" website. No Winamp, no LiteSTEP, no NextSTART. Scaled back community features if any.

If Stardock were to just have a site for their products, they would do the bare minimum content and community-wise regarding such a site, and rightfully so. Just a web page with links to WindowBlind skins, which if many of you recall, was what Stardock's previous download site was. It was probably cheaper. And it got the job done. They could always say screw it and return to that type of model, but it would be a damn shame.

Sorry, I had to vent. This always gets my tightie whities in a bunch.

Wow. That was some pretty semi-incoherent ramblings on my part. Please ignore.

Chris,

It seemed coherent to me, should I be worried?

Nice post.

what always gets me is the holier-than-thou attitude of people who have done something on the net for free. they ran a server for free. they let people dl files for free. they streamed this or that for free. so what?

open a restaurant and give the food away for free, and i'll be happy to write a letter to the pope asking for your sainthood. until then, put it in perspective.

I don't know.... I was reaing what nethell9 who started the thread and all I can say is how can you be on the site for years downloading "stuffs" and not have appientace class? If yu had ths class then you would not, I believe, hhad any problems downloading more "stuffs".

Further more, years is a prety long time using something that somebody programmed. After all those years of using there program (and the site and other peoples designs skins on your PC), how can any body be upset that you contribute by buying or at least interacting with the site?

Is this a new trend? There seems to be a lot of 'bashing' going on lately. How anyone can moan about paying a nominal fee for downloading over 100Mb of stuff is astonishing. May I suggest, citizen nethell9, you find somewhere else to go as I find you offensive. Your manner is insulting to all contributors to this site, as well as the people who run it. I have no objection to people who are unable to make their own skins downloading as much as they wish, but you sir are out of order.

BTW, I make my own skins some of which I've uploaded here. I make them for pleasure and my own use. I have no wish to collect a 'fee' from those who also want to use them. It is a part of my contribution to the community (Note that last word). I can assure you it is much more satisfying giving than receiving. The only reward I want from this site and this community is not having to listen to petty whining from people like yourself. >