Some final words and stance on the Ts front.
!!Warning long!!
The thing is the whole playfield has changed but Ts has almost not changed at all in all those years, in the last year there was more change then in all 8 before it, so seemingly some competition can do wonders?
I cannot make the bill for somebody ells but back in the day's it was enormously expensive to run such server infrastructures and host large amounts of data. The server infrastructure also needed allot of scaling headroom to accommodate the peaks in traffic, that meant the infrastructure would in most cases utilize only 20% of its capacity etc.(not efficient at all). Also the development and maintenance of the software infrastructure (the web application and database) was a very expensive deal, it would involve a big team of highly skilled developers working the clock round.
It still is a big deal today but things have changed allot.
Now day's we have Amazon AWS and Google Cloud etc., those provide enterprise level scalable servers and 100% utilization (max efficiency) for a fraction of the cost compared to 8 years ago.
The cost of mass storage also has come down rapidly, and with lots of new feature rich development frameworks, smaller teams can now build powerful platforms and meaningful web applications and deploy them much faster at lower cost.
You still need skilful developers hoe can work with those new development frameworks but they can do things now that where unimaginable 8 years ago (same thing with us 3D designers).
CGtrader was amongst the first of a kind to leverage all these new tools/technologies and could bring something to people for the fraction of the cost. This all makes it the more hurt if you consider Ts still needs a 60% cut for the expenses.
It seems like time have stood still for Ts all these years and they could not bring down operational cost?
That's the thing, they did not need to because there was no competition, as they argue themselves 80% is exclusives.
I'm glad there still is a seemingly powerful group of inclusive people that can exert meaningful force in other direction. We support and invest in these new tech adapts and innovative companies, and so those that do not adapt or innovate are in danger of getting irrelevant, that creates a healthy premise for action because one cannot afford to keep standing still and do business as usual.
I understand there are new challenges on the horizon like the shift to VR/AR and new services/infrastructures to accommodate all that, it remains to be seen hoe is going to get that right and how much those new services then would cost etc.?
I do not really want to see losers, just good services and winners, and not just one calling all the shots.
The thing is, Ts also provides a service, they are business people making business decisions, no emotion no noting just plane business. We can have endless discussions about good and wrong decisions but they make up their own mind on how they want to move forward and provide value, time will tell what works and what not.
Most of us designers are also business people, we need to be, otherwise we do not grow.
We also want to move forward and make our work practical and profitable.
However, we can go about it in different ways, take for example a look at Epic (makers of Unreal engine) and the slogan "we succeed when you succeed", we give you the tools, you thrive we thrive etc.
We cannot compare the businesses but the strategy is something to learn from.
CGtrader walks in this same spirit and takes a comparable approach to things and it brings more value to the whole community.
In contrast take for example Oculus, they make decisions to go exclusive on VR titles because they think this would be the way to guarantee own success, now HTC Vive and steam platform (which is completely open) is out selling Oculus 2 to 1.
There are many cases that show inclusive strategies work better then exclusive ones.
As an individual artist I want to support independent developers and feed an ecosystem and grow a healthy business environment and be connected (they thrive we thrive etc.).
Just, provide meaningful service, be innovative, make things practical, add value and most importantly, listen to the users.
My personal stance as a single user on the Ts front is as follows (just plane self interest no emotion not good versus evil).
I consider the service very expensive and dominantly self centered, certainly if considering it is possible to run a comparable (but open) service at the fraction of the cost. Now they are trying to trick me saying cost could be mush lower but then I need to sell out and trust them that they are going to deliver the best job?
No, that is up to me to decide and most valuable force to protect, I keep my eye open what others are also doing so good luck, just do your best, maybe I support you, baby not, it depends.
My advice to them would be spend the money on development of great tools, if they have value then people will use them, do not spend money on buying people and locking them in and then do nothing, that will probably backfire.
The only real reason I still have a presence at Ts is because there still are some hard coded Ts users over there, and it is also unclear to me how Ts is going to move to make things future proof.
In mean time I ended my additional support for the service and do not update my profile or post new offerings. I keep a presence there in case things turn for the better, but they don't get my additional support until then, and as additional measures the cost of the service is reflected in the offerings I provide there. I consider this fare trade as those clients deserve freedom to keep using Ts, but they need to pay the higher price that transaction brings. There are other transaction options available to them if they want to.