Plugin deadbeats

If you’re anything like me as a WordPress user, you are currently using between ten and twenty separate plugins to provide various functionalities to your blog. And – again, if you’re like me – you are a shameless freeloader when it comes to compensating the authors of these plugins. Did I say ‘freeloader’? Nay, worse than that – you’re a bona fide deadbeat.

Like me.

I suppose I can claim some kind of morality in that, while I haven’t paid so much as a dime for any plugin, at least I feel bad about it. Well, okay, that’s no kind of morality at all. Compensating plugin authors for their efforts has indeed crossed my mind, more than once, but I’ve never acted on the impulse, and I’ve wondered at that. Let’s assume something better than the worst – that is, that I’m not at heart just a terrible person – and consider other possibilities.

It may be that I – and, by inference, you – have been influenced by an overarching effect of the price of the WordPress platform itself. As you all know, that price is zero, though the platform’s value is so high as to be immeasurable. As WP itself has long maintained:

WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Well, then. It’s easy to see how one might allow that philosophy to color views of WordPress plugins, even though many plugin authors clearly ask for donations to support their work. It’s all free as in beer, yes? After all, open source, GPL, etc., etc. Now where’s that update you promised?

Interestingly, I have no qualms about paying for WordPress themes. For a time I used one of the fine paid themes from Thad Allender’s Graph Paper Press, and I currently use Chris Pearson’s Thesis framework which is also pay-to-play. I’m as happy as a hog in barbecue sauce with Thesis, and thought nothing of buying such a satisfactory theme. But then, what of those plugins that help me customize my Thesis-based site? Each of them is an integral part of the blog, each contributing to the experience of the site (both your experience, and mine), each providing valued functionality. Why wouldn’t I put a dollar amount to that value?

In all fairness, there is no good reason not to.

Once a week, I do a broad WordPress search on Google to check out what folks are saying about the platform out on the innertubes, and so ran across Kevin Eklund’s recent article at tech site ToMuse: “WordPress Developers in Dire Need of a Sustainable Business Model.” Er, timely? Apologies for the lengthy quote, but this neatly encapsulates the matter:

WordPress has always pushed to make plugins and themes hosted at WordPress.org freely available under a General Public License (GPL). This has helped distinguish WordPress from some other blogging platforms and has enabled WordPress to become the most popular blogging platform available today. This business model obviously works very well for WordPress but it does very little for WordPress plugin developers. That is, they put in great amount of time, effort, and money into creating and supporting these plugins but the benefits for doing so pale in comparison as they rarely receive donations for their work.

Last year I asked both Alex King and Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan if they knew the percentage of people that contributed a donation after downloading a plugin. Alex replied to my email and said, “I’d say maybe .5%? Maybe lower…” whereas Mr. Chan explained that, “I would say less than 1% based on my 4 years of doing plugin”. Altogether both plugin creators currently have a combined total of 43 plugins (Alex King: 26, Lester Chan: 17) available for free download at the official WordPress plugin repository. Upon answering the same question, Donncha O Caoimh, of the popularly downloaded WP Super Cache plugin, replied, “I don’t have an exact figure but it’s probably far less than 1%”, “I’d be rather happy if each of them even donated a dollar!”. Alex Rabe, author of the heavily used NextGEN Gallery plugin, supplied me with some donation statistics saying, “Less than 1 percent for NextGEN Gallery, 800,000 downloads and approx. 200 donations”. That actually works out to be a donation rate of 0.025%! That’s completely ridiculous! Providing quality support for these plugins is practically a full time job for these guys and donations clearly don’t cover the costs. Because of this, many plugin developers aren’t able to provide free long-term support/maintenance for their plugin and either 1) compatibility falls behind, 2) another developer is needed to assume responsibility to support/maintain the plugin, or 3) the plugin is abandoned altogether.

Feeling the guilt yet? You should, as should I.

Eklund goes on to consider some alternative business models that might help plugin developers survive the non-support of deadbeats like us. Each models has pros and cons, and it’s likely that none of them alone will help solve the problem. It’s certainly worthy of discussion, however.

In the meanwhile, there is a course of action by which the individual WordPress user can at least help. Put succinctly: pay something for the goddamned plugin.

These are the plugins that presently power this blog:

• Advanced Excerpt*
• Akismet
• Auto-Close Comments, Pingbacks and Trackbacks*
• Bad Behavior*
• Blogroll Links
• cforms*
• CommentLuv*
• Different Posts Per Page
• FD Footnotes*
• Google XML Sitemaps*
• No Self Pings
• Recent Comments* / Post-Plugin Library
• Shadowbox JS*
• Subscribe to Comments*
• Thesis OpenHook*
• WMD Editor*
• WP Ajax Edit Comments*

Of the twenty plugins listed above, ten eleven¹ of them (asterisked) have appeals for donations attached to their use. Having singled out those developers for donation, the big question is that of value. That is, how much is the use of any given plugin worth to you?

The answer will vary by user and situation, surely. For myself, a fair range seems to be between ten and twenty dollars, depending on the functionality and based on a portion of the hard-dollar value of the theme, Thesis ($87 for the basic license). Since I’m not made of money, I’ll be donating to two or three plugin authors a month until my overall debt (and it is a debt) is paid in full. Indeed, I’ve already made donations to the first three plugins on the list. Authors of Advanced Excerpt, Auto-Close, and Bad Behavior, please check your email. In the months to come, I’ll announce the products of other plugin authors whose check is in the mail.

Fellow deadbeats, I challenge you to follow my lead. Let’s show some love to developers whose work supports our blogging efforts. It’s the fair thing to do.