Quote - I am a hobbyist, but only partly. I got into 3d for business reasons, to produce graphics for training materials. When I original bought Poser Pro (I think it was in 2007 or 2008), it never occurred to me that I should use figures from Daz.  I happily snapped up every G2 figure, and bought lots of characters and clothes for them. OK, I was ignorant about the industry. What made me eventually start using Daz figures was buying a Poserworld membership. When the Daz base figures became free, I happily bought morph sets and textures for them to take advantage of the clothes at Poserworld and the freebies here and at ShareCG. Over the years I have collected over 360 characters for V3, and about the same number for V4. I still use the G2 figures a lot in spite of that. They suit my purpose, especially with the career wear available for them.

I now have a lot of utilities for Poser to help me create my own content (thank you PhilC). That strengthens my commitment to Poser.

Daz just doesn't represent good value any more. I still sometimes look at their store when I need an item. I often find a better deal somewhere else, so I don't end up buying there so much any more. They need to look at their value proposition holistically.

Actually I think they have. Think about what you posted. You're a hobbyist and probably don't have a lot of money to spend on content. If you want your content business to thrive, who do you need? 

People with money to spend and not trained to expect stuff for free or heavily discounted. How do you do that? Bring in new users to replace the ones not paying then have set prices for item so they see things they want have a set price to them. So then those new customers not only buy new stuff, but then start going through the old stuff to and buy it... even at full price. I know that been happening at my store.

What I've seen a lot in the past are very vocal people that want things, yet have no money to actually pay for those things. It OK to want things from a company as a consumer.... but being a consumer means once those things are available, you pay for them then; not wishlist them for later... that defeats the purpose of demanding a supply of a product. Because if you don't the company will start listening to those who are actually paying and weed out the ones that aren't. If you're doing your shopping at other places instead of theirs, they'll charge for those things that used to be free that people just only ran into the store to get and run out... and start catering to those actually in the store shopping and buying. That's pretty much simple business there.