What we can learn from the ProfilePress debacle

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Written By David Bisset

4 thoughts on “What we can learn from the ProfilePress debacle”

  1. Affecting 400,000 sites is no small thing with such an update. I agree with Collins about maintaining free plugins and sometimes it is hard to maintain the same high standard as when working with clients.

    But definitely, this should have been handled a bit better by taking into account the number of sites using the plugin. Some plugins may have already similar solutions and such.

    I’ve acquired the WP Sponsors plugin with 5,000 active installs to make it better and also to provide a channel for promoting the Simple Sponsorships plugin. If I went down the same road, I guess a lot of people would not be happy with that. Yes, I could have gained 5,000 users for my new plugin but that would not be the correct statistic I need since it would be pushed to the users.

    Good luck to Collins with his plugin and I hope 400,000 active sites do stay close to that number so he can grow his business.

  2. The plugin used to be simply adding custom avatars to users. That is it. This is a completely different plugin.

  3. Without the hundreds of unpaid labour hours that it took for WordPress, plugin authors wouldn’t exist. Give back to the community that gave you the chance to create your plugins/authors.

  4. Even if you don’t need the features provided in a premium version of a freemium product, you should buy the premium if you can. It is important to support the development and maintenance of the products you use. If you can’t support it financially, maybe you can support it by e.g. helping out in the support forums.

    But this case is about something entirely different. The new author changed the plugin into something else overnight. Without any warning, users would essentially get a totally different plugin that did different things. Freemium or not, that is not OK to do.

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