Renderosity is more akin to a mall with all those freebie sites being connected to the "hub". Originally, on-site hosting was done but ultimately deemed to expensive so they stop. The freestuff section became links, the only caveat being don't require another registration. That slowly stopped. And that's how it was until the policy changed again.

Freebie providers do use their freebies posted as links in the freestuff section to draw visitors to their sites, maybe they have a community you'd be interested in joining or a store seperate from Rendo (free of some of Rendo's rules, key one being(to me) older slower selling products don't get yanked. This is not new, it's been this way for years. Everyone has benefited, Rendo gets folks in the marketplace, people get exposed to websites they may never have found.

Originally, this was a community with a marketplace. Slowly that's become reversed, now we have a marketplace with some semblance of a community.

Folks aren't fighting over the "gold", the problem is the assay office now seems to think the own the mines - when they don't.

Rendo was getting blamed for something they really had no control over, instead of saying "take it for what it is and, use at your own risk" - they decided to control the freestuff they same way they do the MP. For your average visitor, that's probably a good thing. For the folks providing stuff, they don't like being told "okay, you can give away your gum but it has to be on my counter and, I'm going to use it however I see fit ". Some people object to have their freebies sell other people's products, some don't want their freestuff on the same page as something for sale.

This situation cost us, the community, some fantastic freebies because there seems to be an unwillingness to  compromise. Some of that stuff is still available, some gone unless the creator decides to release it again. This is the biggest disappointment of the whole thing, so many great things and people gone from here. The majority of us(I believe) would be nowhere without the artists who create the content we use to create our images.

The "Use the forum" line doesn't really hold a lot of water, I'd be surprised if 20% of the members here ever even entered the forums on purpose. But, I guarantee 95% click on the free stuff button.

If I'm wrong on any of this, anyone obviously more knowing than me - please correct me. The is just the way I see it.

Allow me to add this for clarity's sake: While I am  on the side of the content providers, I don't blame Rendo for the policy change - it's an understandable situation. I do blame Rendo for (seemingly) not wanting to work something out with the freebie providers so that everyone can be happy.