Sites cannot survive without some kind of funding. It's a fact of life. Stardock choose not to make you/me and all the OD subscribers subsidise freeloaders. I see nothing wrong with that. The money from wincusto subscriptions does not go into Stardocks pockets but is ploughed back into making this site faster and better. It is precisely for this reason that Wincustomize doesn't have adverts, because the revenue from subscribers means they don't have to use them. Add to this the fact that those who have already contributed don't need to pay to subscribe and you really have absolutely no case. Those who love skinning and are in it for the fun will be fine because they will have contributed already. When you take into account the subscription price ($19.95 for 2 years at the moment) it blows your whole argument out of the water. Then consider that if you choose to subscribe you get the skinbrowser, exclusive skins (not yet available but probably due soon) into the bargain and it buries your argument 6 feet under.

O thank God someone could put it the way I was supposed to!

Thanks mgorbach! What you said is exactly what I mean!

I hope this site remains free

How dow you defined "fine" when it comes to free websites? Downtime? crashes? bandwidth exceeded?, disappearing for days/weeks/months on end as they try to determine whether its worth it to continue or not? Constantly scrambling to find the cheapest colocation facility/deal they can wrangle for that particular quarter?

Ok pjpowell. I heard you. But I still think I got a point

what are those "free" web ste that your talking about??? deviant art has pop ups... and asks for money to if you haven't noticed.... and the coders who leave means the site will deteriat and won't have as many people... and for those who DO pay get far less of a site then it is now


I really understand these arguments, but if your going to say stuff like this you HAVE to back it up with real data and examples. If you mention Winamp notice that most of there stuff is between 25 and 657 kb!!! not between 12kb ans 10mb!!! or a image intense site. or a multi user upload database... I could go on... but if your going to mention sites like uproar or deviant art, winamp, deskmod or others be aware of the content on there sites, the amount, the traffic they get and other factors including having clientel to keep happy


it is a 2 wat street and the reason why so many people here get upset is because people who post stuff like this do not understand the other way of the street.


Oh my precious stuff!!! all gone!! I downloaded so many MB of stuff!! and now its all gone. remember people back up your hard drive!

The long and short of it is that the site is free for people who contribute. It is not free for those who just want to freeload off other peoples hard work.

'Exclusive skins' are probably even worse than making wincustomize 'for pay', even if i had the talent to do something that good, i would never do an 'exclusive skin' because that is just wrong. Also, someone elses argument was that all people who like skinning should contribute, that would be nice but not everyone are artists! I would much rather not have every person on wincustomize contributing, there would be too much crappy skins! I have been 'with' skinning for probably like 4 years now (i started with nextstart and skinz.org) and i havent contributed much (even though im embarassed aobut that) becasue im just no artist. I do however love the skinning community and would gladly donate to wincustomize if they didn't 'force' me to do so. So many things exist for free on the net, look at linux, opensorce software, etc. Many of these sites work on donations and i think thats a great idea, they are diffinately worth contributing to. Not everyone has the $$ to pay for skinning, and not everyone can contribute because not everyone is an artist, why should they be force to pay for skins that the authors did as a hobby and made for EVERYONE to use, not just people with $$ to spend on wincusto.

mgorbach has no clue, there's never been a free site that could pay for itself. the idea itself is an oxymoron. Nice stuff there btw, 'skinner', the community appreciates all that cut-and-paste of stolen graphics.

Boza: You read another inane post that you agreed with, and without even looking into it vainly started another one of your own. You ended it with "else... I'm out'a here!", and frankly I'm a bit disappointed.

See, the thing is, there are a lot of kind, good-natured people here that care about those more ignorant than themselves. Me, I'm not one of them. I'm a snotty, pig-headed ire-mongerer who doesn't think a thing about writing people off for little or no reason. Welcome to the real world, it's full of people like me. How you fare amongst us, working for us, eating the food we serve you, standing before us in court, will be determined by how much you think before you act. Make a suggestion like the one you made above at a fast food restaurant... and you'll be eating what the cook coughed up. I bet he'll just be crushed you don't like him, too.

I would suggest you not soil your nest here, you'd not like it anywhere else. BTW, if you can't find a way to keep me from downloading your work, let me know, I'll humbly comply with your wishes.

I have been waaaaay too nice lately.

What is this 'forcing to pay' argument I see all the time? no-one is forcing anyone to do anything. Or are ya'll terminally addicted to this place?

Perhaps i'm missing the whole point, but i think this site is perfect the way it is. You can trial the site for 100MB, then contribute, buy the products you are skinning(!) and/or pay the fee (of 20$)

When i think about the cost of it, this site must be... no is the best value for money I have ever seen, anywhere!!! I mean, what else that's anywhere nearly as good as wincustomize can you get for 83cents per month!?!

Just another meaningless thought brought to you in whole by Duncan Stevenson! ( sorry, i was in america in april and *had* to do one of those totaly cheesy things that you see on tv! lol!)

I just read my post and I might have sounded confusing... but the bottom line is that if your a skinner or make comments, or help on the message board with other lost skinners (like me) or any thing possitive to the site then you get unlimited downloads.

when you do no comment EVER or help any skinner get feed back (skinner love feed back) or NEVER help others on the mesage board or NEVER comment on news reports or NEVER submit a news report then you get 100mb for free.


In all honesty, is something wrong in helping out fellow skinners with helpful comments? or anwser a question? or post news on the message board now and then? I have really never see either of you guys until you found out that you can not upload more than 100mb.... do you see why so many skinners get mad and other people who comment and help in other ways OTHER than money get mad?

I hope the next time someone posts they have evedence and facts or some kind of data to back up what they are saying. If we can find out what your seeing then maybe we can have a real discusion about the subject.


Just saying "why isn't it free any more" is just not good enough. Please give examples, related data or some kind of fact other then nestalga of the past and the pre-internet bubble.




I am going to reall miss posting here, but I'll be back (hopefully in a week). And I hope I can HELP other skinners with there work by COMMENTING and other things that will help.


later......


(PLAESE try to read other posts like this and see why this is a clear cut subject and it desirves a clear cut argument if you are going to be against it. Looking forward to your research)

Is there anyone left who still likes to do skinning for free whos against commercializing it? It was a sad day when i saw wincustomize slowly start charging people for things, i guess that skinning as it was a 2 or 3 years ago is over, soon there will be no more good free skins, stardock, while it is a wonderful wonderful software company, should never have been allowed to start a skin site, i actually thought this might happen, but then i though stardock wouldent do that, they wouldent charge for acess to other people's work, i guess they did. Didn't realize they would go down to a low level like this, starodck should pay for wincustomize because THEY benefit from it, without the skins their products wouldent be work crap.

mgorbach: Also, someone elses argument was that all people who like skinning should contribute, that would be nice but not everyone are artists!

Contributing includes purchasing the programs you are downloading skins for. You mention that you are an OD subscriber so therefore you already have unlimited downloads anyway.

Exactly PJ! Hey, this site is as almost "Free" as you can get. It takes so little to remove the limitations that it perplexes me how people can be so offended.

People are offended because they can't come here and silently download all they want! Where else in society can you expect to walk in the door and take all you want without any limitations... Church maybe but I can't think of another example. Even the public library holds you back to a few titles a day!

The only reason to come here to download something is to customize your desktop. Most of the library is for Stardock apps. If you have registered your app(s) then there is no downlaod limit. If you have participated and engaged the community in a meaningful way there is no downlaod limit. If you subscribe to this site there is no download limit. If you author works here and are recognized for your efforts there is no downlaod limit. So let's see who is affected by the limit...

1) shareware users who never register
2) Warez users
3) people who have spent very little time on the message board
4) people who have not skinned anything
5) people who could not for whatever reason subscribe to WC
6) and they have downloaded over 100MB of data already

Someone please tell me why everyone who does not fit into those categories above should suffer through slow page loads, ads, pop ups, a reduced library, etc. so a bunch of whiners can freeload here....

Please I want to know

What about people who love skinning and hang around messageboards of this and other sites but simply have no talent for art? Look at all the freeware on the web! How can you say nothing out there is free, what makes the web diffrent is that many hobbies can work and have communities FOR FREE.

mgorbach: nothing is free. p.s. microsoft called and they want their icons back... pfft.

Mgorbach: Can you name this free server that'll host any site for free no matter how large or popular it is? That sounds rather intriguing.

damn, bakerstreet, that's just not right...

The reason you've not seen me is that I registered about a year ago, downloaded 3 wallpapers, cause I liked them. Now I came back cause I got an email about some new WindowFX2, and wanted to check it out. (Personally, I don't use any skinning software at all. I like windows the way it is, except for the boring blue background) so I went to this site, and thought *whatahell... lets check if ther's any new wallpapers* Of course there was... I downloaded one... left a comment, then... tried to download anotherone... no go... I read briefly about the site, and it's merge with stardock, and that you had to pay for downloading. My head started to spin, and I desperatly searched for a forum to express my feelings about it...

I'm not a skinner... But I like doing graphic prictures for wallpapers, and I'll gladly share my part, If I can get unlimited download of others work

"5) people who could not for whatever reason subscribe to WC" You mean they had constipation
joking aside

Almost free is not free...
charge for others work is just what I DON'T like

now... was there anything else?

Bill: if people are accustomed to taking whatever they want with no regard for ownership, then they will assume everything is free, like webbsites.

lol backerstreet thats true, i never said i had artistic talent, just know how to use photoshop and noticed there werent any nice xp icons, so i made them for myself, and i uploaded, seems they got quite a bit of downloads too. Messiah that would be nice, unfortunatly it doesent exist, i was talking about all the free sites on the net, especially the ones without adds, they do exist, and i think the reason for that is the communities behind them.

Damn! 4 walls and you reached the 100 meg limit! Where are these huge walls? Must be some killer details in there to be so big!

Bill: Personally I think it's great to have the old baker back! Nobody wields the poison pen better!

mgorbach: no, you said a lot of other things, many of which you would like to distance yourself from nowno doubt. The facts are, though, that there are *no* free sites in this 'community', and neither person that is railing on this string has offered the first original peice of art that I can find. Stardock, on the other hand has done a great deal, regardless of whether they do it for profit or not, they have at least done something. P.S. 'borrowing' graphics has nothing to do with a lack of talent, lack of ethics, perhaps, or self-esteem...

There are other sites that may 'seem' free, but if you start thinking more and talking less you'll find that everything has to be paid for, and if you don't help out, others have to do it out of their own pockets. You might find it a perfect deal to drain other people dry without giving back, but it looks awfully sad to me.

I made a post that both you are ignoring above, 5:11:29 PM. Go back and re-read it. You will have happier lives if you understand what I tried to say.

Hell.. this turned out to be quite a big topic... Don't you guys have something else to do?

Me neither

lmao... the last gasp of an ignorant perspective. 'nuff said.