Quote -
As for vendors in the Marketplace -- some of them approach the job of being a vendor as a part-time endeavor which they do purely for fun.  Others view it as a way to finance their Poser addiction.  Still others make good, solid supplemental incomes off of their efforts -- and some even make a full living from it.  It's nowhere near as bad as a few would have us to believe.

Dude. You must be joking.

Nearly every other thread's first posts can be summarized as "Hi! I'd like to sell {item}" or "Hi! I will soon have {item} for sale!", or "Hi! I made {item} and I want to know if it's good enough to sell..." or worst of all: "Hi! I'm new here and I'd like to start selling stuff... how do I do that?" These easily outnumber topics covering improvements on artwork, or how to push the app further than it has ever gone before.

Free stuff is packed to the rafters with "Texture/poses/accessory/MAT for {item for sale}", and rarely items which don't require content purchases in the RMP or DAZ.

You don't even have to take my word for it - a cursory glance about the Poser forum and the Free Stuff section tells the whole tale.

Quote - But one thing that all of those multitudes of good, solid vendors do for the rest of us -- their hard work supplies the very life's blood which makes this website's existence possible.  So even if you never buy anything from a single vendor in the Marketplace.........you have benefited hugely from their labors: and you owe them a debt of gratitude.

I don't owe merchants an single thing beyond the stated amount on the price tag.

Neither do you.

Freestuff makers who aren't merchants simply out promoting their for-sale stuff? Mega-props and gratitude to them. Tute writers who take the time to show others what they've discovered? Awesome works and even more awesome gratitude (as someone who has actually written a user's manual, I can tell you that it is often just as hard to write and proof a tute as it is to build and sell some bit or bob). Folks who take the time to lend a hand to a lost newbie? Sweetness.

...but merchants? Nope. Glad they did it and all, but they got their reward when they cashed the check.

Nothing personal - just business. (emphasis added only to belabor the obvious).

Quote - BTW - volume DOES make up for high price.  It's a business model which has succeeded again and again.  Toyota is a much bigger company than Rolls Royce is.

Never said otherwise. OTOH, when you've got 400 different lingerie sets to choose from for a given mesh, you simply don't get the volume that you would otherwise have if there were only four, y'dig?

/P