Thread

Probably right on most accounts, John, but one of the things people are concerned with is fairly basic functions which now cost up to $100 for an add-on.
Consider that upgrades of the entire ball of wax used to cost less than that per year, it can be a shock to some.

Everyone agrees that developers will make a lot more money with the new version…..as EE appeals to a higher end audience, those corporations and web designers will pay. It’s ALWAYS cheaper to pay even $100 than to spend your own time.

But from a user or comparison perspective, this does do away with some clients at the lower end….who see all around them open source packages with free or extremely cheap add-ons.

It would seem that if EL had the programming mojo (time and capability) that they would have added a lot of functionality to the new version…for free. They did that with the first version(s)....as many of the extensions and add-ons were first party.

Now, if I were an add-on developer, I’d be celebrating. But what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

As to functions that didn’t exist before, time marches on and the internet continues to have more features and benefits you can get for free. Everyone ends up competing against these - i.e., if Google Docs does the job I need, I won’t be buying Word, etc. etc.

So software makers, if they want $$$, need to naturally offer more for less as the years go by.

But from a user or comparison perspective, this does do away with some clients at the lower end.

Lower end in what regard?  Features?  Budget? 

The formula is simple.  The more unique the features you need (possibly because you are trying to separate your site from the rest) the more you will likely need to pay to get those features. 

What do these low end sites need?  If they are simple blogging sites then they don’t need to be bothered about the cost of EE when they could simply use Wordpress for free.  Perhaps they are using ExpressionEngine because the alternatives don’t provide the functionality they need (because these features are unique?)

If this low end site has no budget for these features and can’t find a good enough alternative elsewhere, then would it kill the site not to have that feature?  Maybe it should simply do without?

I think some of the complaints here might be from the community being spoiled by great add-ons.  I see this story play out all the time.  X developer releases X add-on and everyone loves it.  They say it’s such a great add-on that it should have been in EE to begin with.  Would they have been complaining about the lack of that feature if the add-on was never created?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Aren’t we expecting too much from the Ellislab developers and not giving enough credit to third party developers here? 

The Ellislab developers aren’t the best developers in this community.  They aren’t the best designers.  They aren’t the best at UI.  They aren’t the greatest visionaries.  What I love most about EE is that the platform has attracted people who are better in all of these areas and they are providing us with the fruits of their labor, at a cost.

[ I would bet if they were to do the same today, the results would be the same.

Of course, you can’t really claim that without stats. I bet.

😉

I suspect there’s wisdom in running stats on support response on a regular basis. Trends are much easier to spot without waiting for a few years.

From a developer perspective, EE2 has a much better API.  CodeIgniter has been as successful in the world of PHP based web frameworks as EE has been in the world of content management systems.  Building EE on top of CI has been rocky (took too long, too many bugs at first) but developing EE add-ons with the CI API has been a great experience.

That’s good to hear; on both accounts, as it points toward a better future. It’s the confidence in that future that’s probably being questioned.

I waited for my most often used tools to get ported over and for EE2 bugs to be worked out.

As did many of us. For me it’s been well over a year and the experience still is not pleasant. Confidence has dropped, criticism and caution have increased.

We aren’t out of the 1.x woods yet I think, but we are getting closer every day.

Even I’ll admit that there’s been progress on EE 2 over the last year and a half. Painfully slow progress at times, but I’ve converted a number of sites (though the process is on hold for now; until EE 2 becomes more stable). And, I’ve noticed the change in both support requests and responses in the past year or so vs. earlier years.

Things have changed.

Have been with EE since 2005.  Three well-considered auggestions:

1. Some in this thread need to transition from EE1x to a MojoMotor plus not EE2 which is inevitably growing exponentially in complex features because of a top flight developer community with big imagination and the competitive spirit to keep pace with WP add-ons etc.

2. Get professional videos and sequential screenshots on ee.com for everything in the user manual

3. Offer optional affordable annual premium telephone support plans + webex login. 

In one year from implementation, you’ll have a happier community, a 50% decrease in regular support requests, a mean lean technical support forum, and a 50+% increase in sales.

Chris

I have nearly 10 years invested in EE and I hate throwing that away.

Have been with EE since 2005.

Geez, is this thread making anyone else feel old?  :D

Geez, is this thread making anyone else feel old?

Old? Nope. Older? Yep.

I’m already old.

😉

Lower end in what regard?  Features?  Budget? 

The formula is simple.  The more unique the features you need (possibly because you are trying to separate your site from the rest) the more you will likely need to pay to get those features.  .

Those two things are tied together.
A lot of people have really nice sites, but they are still someone hobby sites - they might make a little income from them, but primarily a labor of love. Spending $200 to buy and a yearly cost is doable, but spending $500 total may be not. This is true in any product - at each price point you do away with a certain percentage of the market.

Also, add-ons should be prices in relation to the core product, IMHO. Since EE has decided not to add lots of core features, that also means they have no control over the prices of add-ons. Of course, the use of add-ons also means you become dependent on updates from the other companies…who might come and go (in business)......and also means you will get answers to problems from EE as “check with your add-on developer”. Not much of a problem when you have a free or open sources app….people don’t expect as much.

FYI, I am not complaining, just commenting. It could be the smartest business move ever to dump the low budget folks over to other SW. EE could probably charge $1000 a copy and still maintain a viable business. Or, they could give it away free and still maintain a viable business.

Their decisions, all in all, seem pretty smart. But the fact is that things have changed. If you read the old entries here about the development of Pmachine and EE and when Paul was hired, etc., it brags about Paul and other developers giving back add-on and extensions code for free. This stuff was then passed onto the community.

It’s all about the business model(s) and I think EE has a decent one. At the same time, from a selfish perspective, I always loved to see lots of new little features in each version.