While thinking of the economic aspects brought up by VS, I was thinking about how one would run Bondware/R'osity. Perhaps others would like to speculate on it as well?

Bondware is in the business of selling e-commerce solutions; and Bondware owns R'osity (confirmed by checking the domain info). So, how do you market your e-commerce solution? Why, with a live, working Demo, of course! What could be more compelling than directing potential buyers to a fully functional site that uses your software?

So, let us think: E-commerce, ie. buying on the net. In order for e-commerce to thrive, you need products (supplied by the merchants), a solution to sell them (Bondware), and profit potential (50% of sales).

If you were a potential Bondware investor, you would probably want to see how the system works. So, you sign up to the live Demo site. Well, the forums are a small part of the overall package and most e-commerce sites really could care less about forums. So, you show them the internal workings of the e-commerce functions, including The Merchant's Forum; after all, you want to see how the people using the e-commerce solution think and feel about it.

But, there is a problem: Merchants in the Merchant's Forum are questioning the business acumen of the owner of the site and Bondware. We cannot risk having potential investors see this. Why, if the owner of R'osity/Bondware is seen making a business blunder, and people are pointing it out for everyone to see, an investor just might think twice about investing. After all, how can you claim to know e-commerce (aka e-business) if you are shown to continually make business blunders?

It seems that most of these questions come from a core group of, say, 15 merchants. What do these people have in common? They run their own competing sites/stores (aka e-commerce solutions) or share admin responsibilities for them. Who would know more about e-commerce than someone actively involved in running one or assisting in running one? So, how can we stop them from interjecting the business sense they have acquired from the outside and questioning the owner of R'osity/Bondware? If they are not allowed to post, then the investors are free to roam at will. Brilliant! So, let us fabricate some lame story about "trade secrets" and ban them from the Merchant's Forum on that premise.

Since Bondware owns R'osity, I would gather that Bondware pays for the servers, salaries, operating costs, etc; or they are shared between the two (like the Name Servers as shown in the whois info). Actually, to read the Bondware site, they are also in the hosting business, and "A Basic Bondware site can be had for only $49.95 per month with a one-time startup fee of $199.*". So, in essence, your operating costs for R'osity is most likely nil, or maybe half what the community expects. We all know from the griping of the mods/admins they get "little to nothing for compensation", so they are out of the financial equation. Also, let us not forget the tax write-offs for business expenses.

So, Bondware buys R'osity to be a live demo for their core business of selling e-commerce solutions. By extension, you could also presume that R'osity beta tests any code changes to Bondware. Therefore, the merchants are being used not only as a live Demo, but also as paying (50% profit paying) Beta testers. In the meantime, Bondware, er, Tim, makes 50% profit off the Demo site from other's work. Not a shabby deal, eh?

Does this sound familliar? Think back to some of the discussions surrounding P5 and other software.

Also, if Bondware is making all this money from shared servers and resources, why does it take a 50/50 split from the Merchants when other smaller sites can survive with a more equitable split? Because they can tell the community that they bear the brunt of all the costs (when, actually, it is all Bondware-related costs anyway) and need the extra money for running R'osity - the live Bondware demo site. After all, when you are the "Big Dog on the porch", who is going to question your motives?

Perhaps this is the fabled "trade secret" that is so super-sensitive that Tim's gone on a paranoia trip over?