Why do WordPress plugins stop being maintained? I guess because of the freeloaders*

*freeloader – someone that uses a free thing without giving back in any way

The problem with getting a software for free, just based on its price, is that the cost of switching to something else is high. Most likely a new software, even if it does exactly the same thing, requires to at least be configured as its DB/configuration files are not compatible with other software and there is no migration utility, and then of course you need to test it to make sure you have duplicated everything correctly.

In a very simplistic way a decision to use a specific software is kind of getting married with the software developer. You might be getting married because that is the easiest way to have available sex, or to get rid of social pressure, but after some time you start to develop dependency on your partner and gain common assets that are hard to divide (kids, house, etc). You might be flirting with some other people but usually the cost of divorce is just too high.
Stopping using a software is like divorcing the developer, the cost is usually high.

Since you don’t want to get to a point were a divorce is the only way forward in a relationship, you are being attentive to your partner because everyone that passed puberty knows that in the real life in order to receive you have also to give.
WordPress users apparently have not passed puberty yet.

The attitude projected by users to the plugin authors is one of entitlement.  Users want the plugins free, want them bug free, want them to perfectly match their own unique needs, want their support questions to be answered in a timely manner and want them to be maintained for ever, stay compatible with every new WordPress version.
The first item – “free”, is in real life contradictory to all the others.

Some people think by mistake that plugin developers can eat their ego, but unfortunately they also need some bread from time to time. 5 starring a plugin is nice but doesn’t help to bring bread to the table therefor forcing plugin developer to look for some real day job that doesn’t leave them any will and energy to spend on maintaining their plugins.

Login LockDown plugin is compatible only up to 4.0.8 and was not updated in a year. It has 200k active users. If every one of them paid one time only a fee of 1$, the developer could have spent 2-3 years doing nothing else but caring to the users of the plugins.

Limit Login Attempts is compatible up to 3.3.2, has not been updated in 3 years but still have more then 1M active users. Now just imagine how much time the developer could have devoted to the plugin if each user donated 1$ to him.

I actually got curious about the later plugin and tried to “track down” its developer. From what I saw on his twitter stream he is doing very well. Obviously he neglects the plugin out of his free will, I guess it is because he can’t eat the 5 star reviews.

People are cheap (news at eleven), me included, but giving some monetary incentive to the developer to keep developing their plugins is good for the users.

In a way this is not only a problem of people being cheap, it is also a problem of the repository for not promoting donations to actively used plugins.

The end result is that the plugins that are in the repository are more of a demo for the real plugin for which you actually have to pay. This is bad because not all the developers that do this have the ability (or will) to run their own plugin update service, leaving the users with no notification about security updates.

Maybe donations of 1$ each are not practical, maybe what is needed is some way in which the repository (or more accurately, the WordPress foundation) sponsor the maintenance of high profile plugins.

 

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