It seems that in this discussion there are three completely different aspects:
 1 - the aspect of the users who only see an ease to download and to be informed about updates
 2 - the aspect of the developers who want to protect their development or have full freedom to manage it as they want.
 3 - the purely economic aspect of managing such an infra-structure.

Even if point 3 is unavoidable and poses financing concerns, it remains that such a site relies for a lot on the fact that developers make their developments available.
There has to be a compromise but in my opinion, "the developer can't be the fall guy " (bad French joke traduction 😊)

Flightsim.to  host in Tonga, but they are german based. And as such they absolutely have to follow EU regulations. Their new Terms of Service are in violation of these regulations.
It's not necessary to call a lawsuit for this, if a lot of developpers who are not in accordance with it, suppress theirs contents, they should understand the message.

Without freeware developers, there is no more platform unless they restrict themselves to payware.

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by lagaffe

1 hour ago, leprechaunlive said:

They also like to change ToS without notifying anyone about it. But of course, they also have a section covering that, essentially saying they dont have to notify, or we dont have to accept the new ToS.

Whoever wrote them ToS absolutely made a conscious effort of making sure anything that even remotely enters their web is theirs, for ever and ever until and for eternity. 
One example, is the section saying if your account is terminated, suspended, or deleted by you or them, your content would still remain available and theirs. Whereas before, if your account disapeared, all your stuff would go with it, no traces of you would remain visible. 

 

You're touching on a broader problem that I think there's going to need to be a reckoning on. The concept of TOS is out of control. It made sense back when it was an actual service that you sign up for, such as AOL or even Avsim. Use it under these terms or go away. If the service changes the terms, you don't really lose anything if you decide the new terms aren't acceptable and stop using it. But it makes less sense when variable TOSs exist on platforms that require work or hardware investment. 

Samsung has been trying to get me to digitally sign an updated TOS for my phone. Nope, not gonna do it. I paid you for the phone based on the understanding that existed when I paid you for it. You're not gonna change that understanding without changing how much I paid you for it. 

Same thing here. I absolutely get that servers cost money to run, and they shouldn't have to go bankrupt just to provide a download site. However, changing TOS to essentially mandate developers surrender their rights is asinine. It's the kind of shortsighted move that is likely to backfire. Developers don't want to sign over their rights, and as word gets out that that's what they're doing, they will find other places to upload their work to. 

Might be Avsim's cue to revamp the file library to an interface that isn't from 1998 so more people use it. 😉

 

37 minutes ago, eslader said:

Might be Avsim's cue to revamp the file library to an interface that isn't from 1998 so more people use it. 😉

Yup. Here's hoping.

1 hour ago, eslader said:

Might be Avsim's cue to revamp the file library to an interface that isn't from 1998 so more people use it. 😉

Absolutely agree there! This is AVSIM's golden moment! I say anyone even thinking of signing up to flightsim.to should read these posts carefully and reconsider putting that money toward an AVSIM donation! But maybe AVSIM can create a new category for their donation system called "File system upgrade"? So we know those funds are going toward that if one is most interested in helping out for that part.

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by KERNEL32

The premium tier is one thing. I'm not convinced it's going to bring in much since you can block ads in a million ways for free and waiting 20 secs for your download to start is something that shouldn't be unnerving to many, but who knows.

The TOS thing however is plain stupid. They state they can do pretty much all they want with your work, including modifying it however they see fit, selling it to whoever and you're not getting any of it and also reserve the right to change the terms as they see fit, including your previous work, without notice. This is usually a deal that includes mutual agreement and a hefty compensation, but with their terms they take away any leverage from the creator, including opting out of it. Uploading to their site has to be the most unappealing deal you can get at this point.

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by Nixoq

21 hours ago, TacomaSailor said:

For me with a 600+ Mbs internet - the big advantage of the premium membership is NO Countdown - as soon as I click Download - it starts with no waiting.

I think $5/month is cheap for the kind of service they provide

10 second count down is nothing. I see no benefit in purchasing a subscription. I can download within a matter of seconds or minutes without it anyway. To me the pricing is weird. $5 for a month but $15 for three months. Might has well just buy one month each time.  

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by carlanthony24

What a shame.  I see recently uploaded content is now being marked as 'archived and no longer supported by the author' as content creators back away from the TOS. 
The fee is one thing, but this is starting to repel people - what a needless mess. 
Honestly, at £1 / $1 a month for the upgraded site, and without the new terms, this would have been a goer, but why would people pay $5 a month anyway if a lot of the good content creators are disappearing?

4 hours ago, Luis Hernandez said:

That's the big question: will non-premium users face a downgrade (compared to what we used to have)?

 

4 hours ago, superspud said:

I doubt they would actively downgrade the experience, but they may not put as much effort into maintaining it for free users. 

These two replies are nothing more than pure speculation absent any facts. 

54 minutes ago, KERNEL32 said:

Absolutely agree there! This is AVSIM's golden moment! I say anyone even thinking of signing up to flightsim.to should read these posts carefully and reconsider putting that money toward an AVSIM donation! But maybe AVSIM can create a new category for their donation system called "File system upgrade"? So we know those funds are going toward that if one is most interested in helping out for that part.

Avsim would be in the same predicament flightsim.to now finds itself. Hosting all that and the web traffic it would bring costs a ton of money. Avsim needs funds just to keep what it has going. As well, look at the news section on the front page, its hardly ever updated. Running a file library such as what flightsim.to has takes time, money and people. Some in here and other threads think the files magically appear and the web hosting doesn't cost much which cant be further from the truth. 

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by B777ER

I get this when arriving - https://flightsim.to/user/terms-updated

So things are being noted. 

Bit of a line in the sand, that. They may not like how many people cross over it. 

 

This is very sad.  A site like Flightsim.to is a great idea and I don't have any problem about monetisation per se, but it's not reasonable to remove editorial control from uploaders.  Especially an outright refusal to delete on request.  That's a real confidence killer.

7 hours ago, lagaffe said:

Hi,
First, I have write my opinion on their forum: https://flightsim.to/news/our-approach-to-flightsim-to-premium-and-creators-program

Second, I have created a new ZIP with only a README.txt in which I said my disapproval of their new rules and the fact that our written consent was not sought. I ask to news users to go on my web site in order to download news versions.
This ZIP has been uploaded in place of my old aircraft version and all these changes appear to have been accepted: the last version of 864Ko seems to be the last version on flightsim.to.

Apparently due to the disk space and server problems this would cause, older uploaded versions do not seem to be backed up.
So it's like deleting your own addons since they have already been refused by KL791

Tile for all of you that want, to remove your stuff once and for all. A 7 days deleting spree has begun 🥳✌️🏅

2 minutes ago, superspud said:

I get this when arriving - https://flightsim.to/user/terms-updated

So things are being noted. 

Bit of a line in the sand, that. They may not like how many people cross over it. 

 

Interesting to notice that deletion is exceptionally possible until the 5 of March for uploaders.

On my side I may delete all my addons. I have already 3 of the 4 hosted on Simvol.

Edited February 18, 20233 yr by roland_lfor

They really are not helping themselves. Flightsim.to need to rethink....

Just now, roland_lfor said:

Interesting to notice that deletion is exceptionally possible until the 5 of March for uploader

They certainly took notice, wich means they likely got a lot of devs knocking at their doors asking whats up. Thats what you get if you mess with other peoples stuff. The act of working and delivering something FOR FREE is already very generous in itself, that doesnt mean they should also sign a waiver nuking every single rights they have over their own work.