basicwiz posted at 2:35PM Tue, 12 January 2016 - #4248748

Ted, I'm on the page with everything you are saying.

I, for instance, have pretty much zero interest in Superfly. I think it would be an interesting experiment, (were you so inclined) for you to post some minor project you have undertaken for Superfly to the free area and see what the interest there was. It would certainly give everyone working in the area a heads up. You, after all, are probably the best known Poser guru. If something you offer for Superfly makes waves, then we know there is inrterest there. If it get's 17 downloads, well... that tells a tale as well. The nice thing about doing the experiment as a free item is, everyone can see how much attention it attracts. The "sales" information is public, and ALL vendors could profit from it.

Of course, this pre-supposes that you've got such a project that you're willing to use as a guenea pig. :)

The problem with freebies is that the number of downloads mean nothing in terms of market research.

Sure, lots of people download it - for some day. We have lots of hoarders.

Additionally, what people say they will buy on the forum has no relationship to what they actually pull the credit card out for. Yeah, they love you when you're handing out free stuff, but it's an entirely different conversation when it comes time to pay up.

Market "research" based on freebies isn't research at all.