Moriador,

I agree with part of what you wrote, but one thing stands a bit off to one side - yes, vendors are humans with feelings, but no, it does not mean the fact of their being human should make them exempt from criticism. 

When you sell something, you are trading your skill (and the results thereof) for money. In any commercial transaction, this gives the buyer the right to criticize the results... and the worse the result, the more right to criticize the buyer has. I agree that sometimes that criticism can be misplaced, but oftentimes it is very apropos if it forces the vendor to stop and reconsider the item being sold. To be honest though, emotions should have nothing to do with it from the vendor's POV. Some folks will love what you sell, some will hate it, and some will go ballistic on you if one of your products doesn't meet expectations.

Your example, I get it. Dude didn't mislead anyone, so no foul (and to be honest, scaling is drop-easy with my workflow). OTOH, $40/hr is less than what I get paid (by quite a bit), so if it wastes my time* too much, I am going to avoid it.

• Okay, maybe I should define that... wasting my time means having to do something that gets between me and what I really want to do with the item I just bought. If I have to spend time over and over again fixing something that shouldn't be broken? It's going to affect my opinion of the product, and by extension the maker of it, and I am more willing to cast it aside than I would an item that I built myself.

As those who know me already know, when it comes to actual products that are shoddy or otherwise fell well short of the sales description? Get a condom for your heart little merchie, because your feelings will get fucked. It ain't personal, mind you - just that it's all business when my money is involved. I am perfectly understanding of errors on my part (let's say that I didn't fully RTFM) or due to actual technical issues (oh, it's an .exe file on my Mac and I missed the "Windows Only" bit...) - you'll never hear a peep from me in such cases, and I'll eat the cost without complaint. On the other hand, I will have no mercy when it comes to incompetence, misrepresentation, or shoddy workmanship. I will clarify and confirm that it isn't my fault first, but you'd better pray that your product with up to snuff. Same as in real life, really - I get paid a decent wage because I provide expertise and work that is professional - if I provide less than that, I don't expect any sort of kindness or understanding from my employer, so why should you expect kindness or understanding from me when you fail to meet basic standards in your product?

Mind you, I'm a fairly handy mesh-maker nowadays, but I will not sell a single product. Why? Because I know that what I make won't be up to standards that I set for others, so I basically give it away for free. Yeah, I'm a picky SOB. Welcome to commerce.

Zev0, 

Regarding: "The problem is not that vendors need to be pushed, but customers who are quite happy using older versions of Poser. They limit the overall progression and compatibility of products. Most vendors cannot afford to alienate the older users, who are still the majority and who still bring in the most sales. Also, most customers are happy with the "level" and type of content. If they weren't, they wouldn't buy, and vendors wouldn't make them."

This is a question that has plagued developers from time immemorial - do you force progress, or make what sells? It's a balancing act. If you don't want to support older versions of an app... don't. If you don't want to support D|S (or Poser)... don't. Make the risk/benefit analysis with whatever information you can find or find out, then make the decision from that. Maybe split the baby and make two versions (one supports A, the other only supports B), and see what sells better, using that info to guide your decisions later on.