Just to add my own opinion,

FIrstly I really wonder what 3Darena said that everyone so clearly agreed with? That later seems to have been removed by someone quite mysteriously.

I can not reasonably see any positive outcomes for either the community or Renderosity's business goals in this change to the freebies policy.

I removed my freebies here a number of months ago when the direction began heading to being more of a donation of free content to Renderosity to be used sheerly for Renderosity's own benefit only. eg Renderosity ad revenue, site traffic generation, and general market flow through.

This additional change basically solidifies a system where you will only see freebies from Vendors here. As any shared reward in the freebie has been completely nullified. I make the freebie "GIVE" it to Renderosity. They enjoy the reward while the actual creator receives very little unless they are a vendor here. The freebies forum here will also become rather irrelevant to the greater community as many other sites provide freebie forums that do allow linking to Rendo freebies and in fact any legal freebie around the web. The change would restrict the Freebie forum here to a keyhole view of the Freebie content available as a whole on the net (Only onsite freebies).

I still don't understand how a site that sells content that depends on other external 3rd party content can believe building walls around their own site it is in their own best interest. Go on buy that G3F little black dress that requires A a 3rd party software Application that requires registration at a 3rd party site. B Also requires a 3rd party figure that needs to be downloaded from a 3rd party store front. But we hope you will only spend here in the future. People will choose in this industry to spend their hard earned money on any product in any store that they want for their creative pursuits. It's impossible to pin them down unless you have a closed market such is in 3D Game consoles.

I do understand that all of the admins do want the best for this site, though I do wonder how they assess the impact of some of these changes to the actual community who do pursue 3D art themselves as a hobby and are not just in it for the revenue stream. As it seems a lot of these decisions are made entirely in a vacuum and impacts that immediately present to myself are entirely missed in the justification of the change.

Also there is no liability for Renderosity in the aspect of potential malware exposure from links as the current TOS covers that and has for as long as I can remember.

Excerpt from DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES: --> https://www.renderosity.com/mod/wiki/?policies&terms

RENDEROSITY MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; (ii) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE; (iii) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE; (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION OR OTHER MATERIAL PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS; AND (v) ANY ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS ACCESSED AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK, AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL.