I have experienced it from both sides of the railroad track. Not only do I constantly struggle to find honest, and skillful beta testers, ones who actually know what beta testing means, and then will actually do it, but I beta test pretty much every product that has come down the pike for one of the major developers here, products that the larger majority of the Poser community then purchase. Talk about a heavy weight of responsibility! ;) As a beta tester for that larger developer, I tend to get my beta's late in the evening, along with a note asking for a report first thing in the morning, or at the least within 24 hours. And I dare not fail them or let them down, since if I miss something I could have caught, and that they were too tired to see, it could affect thousands of you here. And so I brew up a BIG pot of coffee, and cancel any plans for sleep, and set aside my own projects for the duration! Marque knows what I'm talkin' 'bout! ;) She shares this joy with me ;p But in the end, though I am only technically recompensed with a product worth a few dollars, not nearly what my time was worth in man hours, the joy, and satisfaction, and serving a higher purpose for the community are payment also. And... I learn new things! And sometimes... whispsers softly I even get to teach them new things... ;) There is joy in it, but when the joy wears thin, and the night is long, and the zip files keep coming in corrupted, so you must work with what PKzip can manage to extract and patch back together rather than slow down the production effort... then one must fall back on some higher virtue and committment and not make excuses. I think that personally, my most frustrating experiences with beta testers are excuses that make no sense to me, who is also a beta tester. To say, "I am going to my daughters wedding" is a GOOD excuse. To say, "I am very sick... can't get out of bed" is a GOOD excuse. Good excuses are no problem :) To say, "I don't know... I never did understand faeries very much...", or, "I just didn't like this character alot, so I haven't done much with it I am afraid", is a BAD excuse. It is not aesthetic judgements that the beta tester is hired to make, but ability to check things out technically. The same tests run on any character can be run on a faerie, a ghoul, a gremlin, a goblin, or a Big Boobed Vicki with a Helmet ;) And then sadly, what the beta testers may not realize, is if they fail based on an excuse like this in a project just cause that character or work is not their personal cup of tea, what it tells me is all they are really in it for is to get a character they want for free, and have no other interest perhaps. So... I tend to then take them off my list for my next project... and who knows, the next one may have been not only their cup of tea, but their dream project, something they have always wanted. The best beta testers I have ever met, treat it like some higher calling...