talk about a death wish. Sorry you see it that way Brad.
Stardock never would have made it without WC. It was/is the perfect match and the unique factor. Obviously, SD has made quite a bit of money despite the money pit that is WC. DA would kill the skinning community as we know it today. The skinning community keeps stardock alive. Without the fine contributors that freely have made the thousands of skins for SD products you would have had to pay to have them made by a select handful of people. I don't know what I'm missing in this common sense equation, or what you fail to see. I'm not trying to stir a shitpile here. I would just like to know what makes you see it the way you do?
I'm going to attempt to say this without soundint too arrogant:
Having run a successful multi-million dollar business for a decade and a half, I think I have some idea of what made Stardock a success.
Do not kid yourself that Stardock needs WinCustomize. It does not. Even if we didn't team up with deviantART, Stardock could still simply have a simple gallery ala Winamp and other such programs.
Why do I see it this way? Because I know that a huge % of users come to WinCustomize because they are pointed here from Stardock.com in the first place. It's not the content driving the software. It's the software driving the content. People download the software first, THEN come here to get content. One doesn't need 5000+ skins for a skinnable thing to be a success.
The reason Stardock has continued to support WinCustomize is because of the community. We love you guys. We think the skinning community is worth it. But at the same time, we can't carry the load disproportionately indefinitely. WinCustomize costs Stardock over $600,000 a year to run. And through a combination of ads, subscriptions, and other means it needs to generate that much or the cost will have to be decreased or revenue increasesd.
Ads generate more revenue for WC now than the subscriptions.
Since we don't plan to close WinCustomize, the most obvious solution is increase the ads for non-subscribers substantially. And those who don't want the ads and want the other services of WC and want to support the site directly can buy a subscription ($30 for the first year, $20 to renew).
