flightsim.to premium

[bobcat999 8,489]

1 hour ago, apollon01 said:

There is far too much hysteria in this discussion.

There was a thriving freeware community before fs.to and there will be one after fs.to as well, I am sure.

Fs.to is a great place for both consumers of freeware as well as for creators of freeware (I am one of them). I hope they continue to exist as they offer a convenient way to check for new freeware and track updates.

Maybe too convenient though. I am surprised how many people are scared that they might suffer from having to follow a number of sites on internet instead of one single webpage. Seriously? That was always the case in the past and to me it looks like such statements are made just to cover laziness. Use google or your favorite search engine to check what's new and use bookmarks of webpages of your favorite freeware creators who are not on fs.to. 10 minutes job if I do it slowly. And if this is the only price I have to pay to get a mod that is offered to me free of charge, I am happy to pay it.

Some of my preferred freeware mods were never on fs.to anyway and the situation with payware is not any different. I bought stuff from a number of vendors (that I have to track for updates and new products) and it never occurred to me I should complain that there is no one single store that has it all.

I understand that consumers of freeware mods have wishes when it comes to conditions under which they consume (e.g. files should be available forever) but they have no rights to require just that, unfortunately. Let's face it and stop moaning.

A common sense post, which can be very rare at times it seems.
Just one thing - I have seen heated debate rather than hysteria.  Introducing words like that can make it a self-fulfilling prophesy if not careful.    But I get your viewpoint, and I do agree with your general sentiment,.

My final take on this is this: -

1. I am sure FS.TO will continue to exist and develop even further.  There is no threat to its existence unless the owners decide to pull the plug, and that is completely up to them.

2. Nobody was really upset about the FS.TO subscription / pro service.  They site does incur substantial costs, and paying isn't compulsory - they are not putting free stuff behind a paywall, just offering a little encouragement on not waiting so long to get it! 

3. While it doesn't seem that bad now (in terms of the TOS issues), and they have put out clearer communication recently outlining their position and the rights of developers, FS.TO definitely mishandled the situation initially. 
Whatever the technicalities of the TOS that back-seat lawyers on here want to be pedantic about, when developers react that way, I can't see how anyone can deny that there has been a miscommunication at the least, and that is on them, not the developers.

4. I am shocked at the selfishness of some people and attitude towards the developers, a lot of whom publish their hard work for free, and should be able to decide where they want to post their work.
As mentioned, a lot of it seems to be derived from pure selfishness that people won't now have all freeware in one place, including major developers.

5. I understand both sides position around this fall-out, but I am disappointed that FS.TO have also over-reacted to the situation by kicking GotFriends off the site. 
I also fear that others, like the developers of the WBSim / JPLogistics Cessna 152 will now never return. 
It is a shame because taking a bit of a breath and a bit of clarification / communication / negotiation might have solved this, but it is done now.  I believe in most cases it is irreversible judging by statements put out by both sides - what a pity.

6. Which brings me to a follow-on point.  We need another site / competition.  At lest for the great developers that have left FS.TO 
It is a shame it can't all be in one place now, but we were spoilt with FS.TO.  With FSX / P3D, I was checking around 10 freeware and news sites every night.
I am sure nobody wants to go back to that, but certainly a few sites wouldn't hurt, and would actually spread the load a bit with the massive download sizes we are seeing in this day and age.

7. Finally, my support will always be behind the fantastic developers that devote their precious time to giving us exceptional products for free, and also including the moderators and owners of sites like Avism - We don't realise how lucky we are sometimes.

Over and out - I don't really want to reply any more - it is all a bit sad really with no winners, and some pretty pointless arguments, but hopefully it is close to blowing over now.  Onwards and upwards!

Edited February 25, 2023 by bobcat999

[HiFlyer 9,368]

3 hours ago, hansb57 said:

So I appreciate what creators do but some of them are wearing to big shoes.

I appreciate what Flightsim.to does and did, but feel that their shoes got too big.

Without those creators, good, bad and indifferent, what is that site but yet another random Flightsim store?

Edited February 25, 2023 by HiFlyer

[riverreveal 145]

Hopefully, everything settles down soon. I am massively appreciative of all the freeware that has enriched my flight sim world. I'm also thankful for flightsim.to for allowing me somewhere user friendly to collect all that freeware. 

At least the owners of flightsim.to will have seen what can happen if they push too far.

[MM 426]

Here is an optimistic view of the just recent Creators v FlightSim.to dispute.

All said, it seems that there is a good possibility of finding a common interest and an amicable agreement. The Creators have a legitimate concern about the just-previous Terms of Service – that implied that they release partial control over their creations to the service (FlightSim.to). When the FS.to team changed their business model to include a subscription, the Creators may reasonably have questioned whether they continued to see FS.to as a “pure freeware” provider. And they reasonably might want to withdraw their creation if the conditions changed the actual practice of the original Terms of Service.

The guys at Flightsim.to reasonably want to have a stable (or at least predictable) stock of high quality freeware content to offer their users, customers and advertisers as well as to keep the number of deletions to a minimum. (On the latter point, FS.to is unusual because it maintains connections between different elements in their content stock and between those elements and the hundreds of thousands of users. This design of community integration is pure magic.)

Let us affirm that the motives of both the Creators and Team FS.to are just fine here. Both are interested in doing a service for the community. A few creators may be thinking about doing payware and creating a business and that is great. Others may be more committed to the ideal of freeware. Equally great. The recent explosion of freeware products has been just remarkable.

The guys at FS.to may be of a single mind or they may differ...just don’t know. But their efforts over the last two years have done great things for the practice of freeware – they have allowed an increasingly large community to build, share, and enjoy freeware creations for our hobby. They have engineered a site that is now an essential infrastructure for the modern hobby. (We can all acknowledge that they have constantly improved their site over time and have shown a readiness to keep making progress.) Lots of kudos for the Flightsim.to team.

Of course, both “sides” need the other. Things work better not only when there is an acknowledged mutual interdependence but also when everyone expresses a spirit of cooperation and common purpose. The current state of the ongoing indirect communication between the creators and the FS.to team seems to have moved everyone in exactly the right direction.

One hopes that this has provided a positive learning experience. The moves by the guys at FS.to have been innovative in the sense that they changed their lawyers’ “everything is mine” Terms of Service to accommodate their real partners – the Creators community. This appears much more open than other distribution sites and may move everyone along the road to a more cooperative environment. And it seems than many Creators (though not all) have moved back to partnering with the FS.to team. Making this work in the future will undoubtedly require effort and compromise by all.

Given the great progress of the last two years, this enterprise has tremendous potential.

Thanks to all.
 

[Stearmandriver 2,321]

14 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I also think that if you put something out there for the entire world to enjoy, then you should accept that the end user's opinion actually does matter.

Can I ask why? I'm genuinely curious.

There seems to be a belief that creators are doing what they do for the "recognition", in order to bask in the admiration of random people on the Internet or something.

Is this really perceived as a thing?  Can someone make that idea make sense?

[qqwertz 789]

13 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Can I ask why? I'm genuinely curious.

There seems to be a belief that creators are doing what they do for the "recognition", in order to bask in the admiration of random people on the Internet or something.

Is this really perceived as a thing?  Can someone make that idea make sense?

I guess there are many reasons why people develop freeware addons. I personally just enjoy the creative process and mostly do projects for myself. However, I am very happy to share my work for the enjoyment of others.

Does the opinion of end users matter to me? It depends. I am very happy if a nice person likes my work and offers constructive criticism or a suggestion. That can be very motivating and even inspired me to start some projects. However, I couldn't care less about the opinion of a spoiled brat who thinks it is my duty to make everything as perfect as they expect it to be.

[blueshark747 1,845]

12 hours ago, apollon01 said:

Maybe too convenient though. I am surprised how many people are scared that they might suffer from having to follow a number of sites on internet instead of one single webpage. Seriously? That was always the case in the past and to me it looks like such statements are made just to cover laziness

Yes seriously, this is no longer the past. Some folks want to keep things simple and minimal as possible these days. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's laziness.

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

Can I ask why? I'm genuinely curious.

There seems to be a belief that creators are doing what they do for the "recognition", in order to bask in the admiration of random people on the Internet or something.

Is this really perceived as a thing?  Can someone make that idea make sense?

How many freeware devs to you know or communicate with personally? The freeware devs I'm in touch with NEVER uploaded anything expecting any sort of tangible gratitude from Flightsim.to. Even before the talk of uploader access benefits/credits.

They simply get motivation and joy reading their comments and 5 star review ratings or some have used freeware to build a great rep and rapport with the community and transitioned into payware.

We live in a new time of internet where clout/notoriety is just as valuable as money.

Some Flightsim.to users simply get gratitude from status...ie rank, karma, downloads, followers, likes.

There are Youtube/Twitch content creators who make more money off these freeware addons from potential monetization than the actual freeware developers themselves.

From what I've seen most freeware devs are just fine with that as long as they're acknowledged and credited as the author somewhere in the video or description and never expect a dime of potential monetization money.

As a smaller content creator I'm constantly given free promotional early freeware/payware addons from devs I've built rapport with, so i could only imagine what bigger much more popular content creators get thrown at them.

Popularity and admiration go a long way in this new internet age, so yes everyone's intentions/goals certainly differ.

As we are all wired differently and everyone's motivation isn't always money/profit.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by blueshark747

[Ron Attwood 3,473]

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

Can I ask why? I'm genuinely curious.

There seems to be a belief that creators are doing what they do for the "recognition", in order to bask in the admiration of random people on the Internet or something.

Is this really perceived as a thing?  Can someone make that idea make sense?

Speaking just for myself, I do paints of aircraft I like and liveries that I like. I also do it for the challenge which also it keeps me from annoying the wife. I do not do it for money.

But I would be lying if I said I wasn't pleased with a "Well done Ron, great livery" type response, or that I wouldn't be disappointed if it only got 3 downloads. So the 'recognition' is welcome. Ask anyone who does any of this free stuff.

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

34 minutes ago, blueshark747 said:

We live in a new time of internet where clout/notoriety is just as valuable as money.

I'm sure this internet thing won't catch on anyway, you'll see. 😋

BTW, we're seeing here exactly the generational divide between simmers that I was mentioning a few days ago in this thread. Old-time simmers not being familiar with modern dynamics of the gaming, mod & "influencer" market and its connections with social media, and thus fundamentally misjudging the sheer pull and market power a site like FS.to has, simply through its convenience for everyone involved.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Der Zeitgeist

[blueshark747 1,845]

8 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I'm sure this internet thing won't catch on anyway, you'll see. 😋

BTW, we're seeing here exactly the generational divide between simmers that I was mentioning a few days ago in this thread. Old-time simmers not being familiar with modern dynamics of the gaming, mod & "influencer" market and its connections with social media, and thus fundamentally misjudging the sheer pull and market power a site like FS.to has, simply through its convenience for everyone involved.

Spot on!🎯

[Stearmandriver 2,321]

34 minutes ago, blueshark747 said:

How many freeware devs to you know or communicate with personally?

 

18 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

Ask anyone who does any of this free stuff.

Well I mean, I've done some of it myself; I've got some sceneries, a flight model mod etc on .to.  I've gotta say, it never even occurred to me to look at my "karma" or whatever that is.

I built my stuff because it was fun to do.  I shared it because others asked.  Internet recognition?  That's... make believe.  I guess people really ARE wired differently, if there are people that matters to.

But, to wrap it back to the original point: if a creator chooses to switch to a less popular venue to share their stuff, then obviously this sort of thing isn't real valuable to them either.  So what kind of points is the person scoring, who laughs at them for reducing their make-believe "recognition" or "exposure" or whatever?  Haven't the circumstances already proven that this isn't meaningful to them?

 

[blueshark747 1,845]

13 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Well I mean, I've done some of it myself; I've got some sceneries, a flight model mod etc on .to

You don't get joy and motivation from reading the number of downloads, comments and ratings of your addons on flightsim.to or when your sceneries pop up on a youtube video?

Who would really want less of that after experiencing the joy and excited it brings to users?

Reading comments like  "Finally someone has made scenery for XYZ area/place/airfied/city THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU STEARMANDERIVER looking forward to more of your awesome work!🍻 "

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by blueshark747

[honanhal 1,420]

4 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I built my stuff because it was fun to do.  I shared it because others asked.  Internet recognition?  That's... make believe.  I guess people really ARE wired differently, if there are people that matters to.

For what it’s worth, I similarly can’t understand someone who creates freeware and who wouldn’t want to reach the largest possible audience. (I’ve done a little, but not in a long time.) I also fundamentally don’t really understand the thinking that makes “control” of your freeware more important than sharing your creation with as many people as possible.

I do respect people’s different ideas on this, but it doesn’t mean I understand it!

[HiFlyer 9,368]

4 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

But, to wrap it back to the original point: if a creator chooses to switch to a less popular venue to share their stuff, then obviously this sort of thing isn't real valuable to them either.

Maybe. Maybe not. One-size thinking doesn't necessarily fit all.

[Ron Attwood 3,473]

11 hours ago, honanhal said:

I also fundamentally don’t really understand the thinking that makes “control” of your freeware more important than sharing your creation with as many people as possible.

At the start of this furore I was a bit 'hurrumphy'. As time passed I realised that all I was concerned about was someone using my work and passing it on as their own. This has happened only once and was quickly stomped on by .to.

The storm-in-a-teacup has passed for me. Some seem to be having too much fun with this to let it go. Good luck to them. ❤😁