Would you pay for Roms/Themes?

[darkmatter]

Paying for roms would discourage trying them all. i'd prefer to try them all, and then donate to the one I find myself using.

I donated $20 to sourcery.

 

[tdawg2008]

Themes are one thing to pay for, I paid for numerous when I had a Blackberry but never pay for a rom. Roms should be donation.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums App

 

[coldhardtruth]

I really appreciate everything the devs here do. They do a great job helping us get the most out of our phone. However, there are not any rom's that i would pay for. The reason being is there is not any rom available that has "it all" or is free from bugs like most software that you pay for.

Also since android is open source i am fairly sure it would be illegal.

Assuming they find a loop hole through the legal issues of using companies code, the ROMs would def need to be supported. No way would it be right for devs to charge for ROMs that are full of bugs. They should stick to donations. 1/275 is better then 0.

Sent from my GB Incredible

 

[Sudo_]

Assuming they find a loop hole through the legal issues of using companies code, the ROMs would def need to be supported. No way would it be right for devs to charge for ROMs that are full of bugs. They should stick to donations. 1/275 is better then 0.

Sent from my GB Incredible

You are kidding right? 1/275 is not really better than 0.

I'm sure Juicemane enjoyed the 20oz mountain dew he received from 275 people who downloaded his themes.

The issue here is not donation vs. for pay

The issue is that nobody is donating and raises the question about whether should they charge for the work they put in.

Again, this is about the devs being adequately supported. Believe me when I say that their work, full of bugs or not, is worth much more than widgets or live wallpapers that people pay for ALL THE TIME.

I would be willing to bet these devs would be happy if everyone just paid $0.50 for their work.

 

[coldhardtruth]

Assuming they find a loop hole through the legal issues of using companies code, the ROMs would def need to be supported. No way would it be right for devs to charge for ROMs that are full of bugs. They should stick to donations. 1/275 is better then 0.

Sent from my GB Incredible

You are kidding right? 1/275 is not really better than 0.

I'm sure Juicemane enjoyed the 20oz mountain dew he received from 275 people who downloaded his themes.

The issue here is not donation vs. for pay

The issue is that nobody is donating and raises the question about whether should they charge for the work they put in.

Again, this is about the devs being adequately supported. Believe me when I say that their work, full of bugs or not, is worth much more than widgets or live wallpapers that people pay for ALL THE TIME.

I would be willing to bet these devs would be happy if everyone just paid $0.50 for their work.

Obviously they r good on $. People r donating otherwise they would stop releasing ROMs/builds. The amount of donators is irrelevant.

I think this should be approached like any business. Draw up a plan to see how much everything will cost before starting. If projected overhead is too high for the dev, they shouldn't do it. Why start a project without all the proper resources?

I've yet to come a across a ROM where every feature works correctly but would donate for a complete and fully functional one for sure. Donating for the test builds and unfinished ROMs just doesn't make sense. Thatz like a consumer paying the company for QA services.

You shouldn't have to donate to a dev to show appreciation anyways.(not that all devs r like that) They are respected. They know they are good. Their work speaks for itself.

The majority of the community shows them love. I see it in almost every thread. I would think that is sufficient.

Sent from my GB Incredible

 

[phishfi]

Based on standard economics, this is a non-issue. In some fashion the devs are getting what they want from posting these roms, either from monetary compensation or from thanks and notariety from others on the forums and android sites. I am not trying to take away from the work they pit into all of this, I'm looking at this from an economist's viewpoint. If they felt their compensation wasn't enough they would either work harder in hopes of making more, or they would work less expecting not to receive anything out of this.

I very much appreciate the work everyone does, and I'm happy to help test all kinds of mods. I don't even know whose theme i'm using on this phone, but I don't use roms at all. The point is that I think a lot of this debate is disregarding the other forms of "return" devs receive, including a twitter following, people referencing them all the time. Hell, sdx devs' site puts popular updates from devs on the front page, so now their names are even more note-worthy...

Sent from my "Stock" DX

 

[epsilonbass]

I'm going to go ahead and use the Liberty Rom as an example as it's the rom I know the most about, and it's pretty popular.

But what if per say, Liberty releases 2.0 sans the Liberty toolbox (already available on the app store), and then charges $2 for it? One could still add themes by downloading them from forums etc, can still make the code changes but have to do it through terminal/text editor.. but if the consumer would want the quick easy tool box, they would have to throw the dev a couple bucks. It might alienate a percentage of the 1.5 users that are accustomed to having it for free, but calmly explain that a dev's gotta eat too. I remember loving the Liberty rom before I even understood what the toolbox did, I now would gladly pay 2 bucks for those added features.

Another thing I would suggest is to go the musician route, and sell some merch. Yeah, it does involve an investment, but if you can get 20 shirts for $10 each, and sell for $20, you can double your investment, which can then go into more merch. Don't have enough from donations? Make a pre-sale and let people know on here and dx forums. Judging by the amount of people that have Liberty images in their sig, on their profile pic, posting pictures with a liberty background/icons/drop down tray, you can most likely find 20 people that would want a liberty t-shirt. T-shirts too expensive to start off? Start with stickers, they're pretty cheap. Maybe then it can be donate 5/10 bucks, we'll send you a Liberty sticker.

Again, sorry to use liberty as the example, it's just a good example.

Point is if you can't make money on something you don't have the rights to, sell something you do.

 

[CASHPOINT]

I think if people were to start paying for roms the quality of roms would sky rocket and real talented people would come in. Making roms isn't attractive to devs at all. In all honesty I consider any time I spend making a rom free work. If I were to keep track of how much I made per hour working on roms it would probably come to $1 an hour. Devs have a much greater payout and guarantee of return by working on apps for the Android market. This keeps many talented devs from even considering working on a rom. I do roms for fun, not for money and the fact that I still do them after a year and recieving a very low return shows that... so charging for roms or not, I'm still going to be making roms. Just putting in my 2 cents.

Don't stop!! Your Droid Overclock app is super nice.

 

[Sudo_]

I'm going to go ahead and use the Liberty Rom as an example as it's the rom I know the most about, and it's pretty popular.

But what if per say, Liberty releases 2.0 sans the Liberty toolbox (already available on the app store), and then charges $2 for it? One could still add themes by downloading them from forums etc, can still make the code changes but have to do it through terminal/text editor.. but if the consumer would want the quick easy tool box, they would have to throw the dev a couple bucks. It might alienate a percentage of the 1.5 users that are accustomed to having it for free, but calmly explain that a dev's gotta eat too. I remember loving the Liberty rom before I even understood what the toolbox did, I now would gladly pay 2 bucks for those added features.

Another thing I would suggest is to go the musician route, and sell some merch. Yeah, it does involve an investment, but if you can get 20 shirts for $10 each, and sell for $20, you can double your investment, which can then go into more merch. Don't have enough from donations? Make a pre-sale and let people know on here and dx forums. Judging by the amount of people that have Liberty images in their sig, on their profile pic, posting pictures with a liberty background/icons/drop down tray, you can most likely find 20 people that would want a liberty t-shirt. T-shirts too expensive to start off? Start with stickers, they're pretty cheap. Maybe then it can be donate 5/10 bucks, we'll send you a Liberty sticker.

Again, sorry to use liberty as the example, it's just a good example.

Point is if you can't make money on something you don't have the rights to, sell something you do.

This is exactly what I am talking about.

Obviously people do not agree with me (judging by the polls) but I think new features like Liberty Toolbox have every right to cost money (just like a custom app.... since that is exactly what it is)

I know the devs love what they do or else they wouldn't be doing it..... but all of the community should really start showing more love!

If you read this and have never donated to a developer I hope you are motivated now to click that "Donate" button now for whatever rom/theme you love and give a little back! Give at least $1 today to say "thanks"!

 

[phishfi]

Great point epsilon. I think the liberty rom is very unique. They would definitely have a market for things like tshirts and laptop stickers (or phone stickers) as well as the capability of putting the liberty app on the market instead of for free. In fact, they could have a free app and a paid app with more features. I like this idea a LOT. However, having a rom with all the features built in also allows for better quality testing and error-fixing based on a larger supply of users. So each dev has to weigh their options when it comes to charging for rom features vs giving the public unlimited access to their products

Sent from my "Stock" DX

 

[furbearingmammal]

As soon as you start charging for any "feature" of a ROM it's no longer a feature. Once you start doing that there will be a movement to crack it. Net result? People who don't want to pay won't, people who do will reduce their donations by the amount they have to pay, probably more. Overall it might offer a short-term boost to the dev, but in the long run it'll cost them a good portion of their donations, and as a result less income. The Devs missed out when they didn't ask Koush to pay $5/month or whatever to include their ROMs in ROM Manager, so Koush cleaned up on their hard work. I didn't hear any complaints. Still haven't.

Custom apps, yes, I can see charging for them, but why make them ROM-specific? Spread the love, then everyone can have them... And we're back to developing for the Market. Viscious circle. Devs aren't in it for the money. If they were, they wouldn't be doing it, because it's not profitable.