I understand what you're saying.

One thing is for certain though, a trend of people creating their own content rather than purchasing professionally built content won't help Renderosity or other content driven marketplaces. That said, I believe there are always going to be things outside the scope of most home content creators for example look at something like a Stonemason set. While for this market sector it's quite expensive cost wise, it still makes sense to purchase a set like that rather than spending the long hours to create something equivalent even if you are capable of such detailed modelling and texturing. That is the gap where professional content will always be attractive to a large group of users. Where it is either outside of an area of expertise or it would take longer to create it than is reasonable for the intended use of the item. While the consumer segment may be decreasing in some sectors, you may actually find it's increasing in others and still quite large as a whole.

As far as DSvsPoser battle goes. Just because I like to use paint brushes with oils doesn't mean watercolours or pencils are bad or inferior in some way. A lot just comes down to personal preference, regardless of the differences in capabilities between the two. There is room for both platforms to coexist and for years the crossover has been strong between the two schools and really it is a little sad to see the divide growing larger of late, which is thanks mainly to the different development direction between the two apps. Which is as exciting as it is divisive imo.

I agree with everything you have said there and I have gone the way you have described.  I purchased something yesterday that was a multi room set up with seven room presets and 50 materials.  Even if I had the skills it would have taken me a month or more to create.  It cost me less than $7 which is a no brainer.  There will always be a market for high quality or good value stuff but the vendors of Stonemason class are few and far between.  They are expensive but still good value for money but then come the dilemma do you look at the number of sales, total cost of sales or the average to try and decide the present market?  Certainly in the last few years I have been happier to pay more for items that are well produced. One thing is for sure, given the choice of a high quality scene and half a dozen items of glam wear I will go the HQ scene route even if it costs more than the five items of clothes out together.  Trouble is I do not see enough vendors producing high quality items to keep the present market buoyant, or enough that makes good use of the features that exist in the latest versions of Poser.  I understand the argument for backwards compatibility but, for example, it really is time for materials to be in the materials folder and not in the pose folder.  I know they can be moved but do I really want to pay full price for something that was produced with Poser 6 in mind and then have to put work in to make the most of it in Poser 2014.  Once again I am happy to put my money where my mouth is and pay a much higher price for something that makes use of Poser 10/2014 features in mind.

Going the other extreme I do tend to pick up clothes in sales or via prime but I rarely use these items straight out of the box.  They are a starting point for me to remodel and/or re-texture, sure it takes some extra work but I have paid so little for them but from the vendors point of view their cut of $3.50 can't be good return on their efforts.

As to the DS/Poser battle, well I have little time for such nonsense but then I was never into the 'mine is bigger, faster and better than your's camp' in any situation.  It is a shame to degrade the argument and concentrate on what is different when it would be so much better to concentrate on the fact that we all have 3D art work as a hobby in some form.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.