Indeed, as Larry said.

But also, I am not convinced a whole lot more people would buy a skin for 1$. A lot of  people are opposed to paying for skins, period. No matter the price.

You used to be able to buy music online for 1$ per song. But it didn't work out much, although it was really cheap. So most places now have the subsciption method (so much per month), and it turns out to work better, even though it's more expensive.

Apple seems to be doing quite well with the itunes store selling music for 99 cents per song. They reportedly sold 275,000 songs within the first 18 hours of operation, which equates to one song every four seconds. It's been reported that they are making 36 cents per song. So....you can be successful selling a $1 product, but you would have to do monster volume which is unlikely with skins.

Apple seems to be doing quite well with the itunes store selling music for 99 cents per song

Yeah, because there's no KaZaa for mac lol.

davad: Apple is big enough to have their own online payment store, without having to go through a third party charging a per transaction fee.

sttroopers: actually, there is Limewire for Mac. But indeed, the Mac world seems to be different.  A lot of Mac users have this Mac pride, a sort of adoration for everything that has the name Apple. I'm sure the fact that the store has the Apple name makes a bit of a difference as to why their store work while others have failed doing the same thing.

The reason the music thing didn't work is because there was a very limited selection, huge restrictions on what you could do with it, and you couldn't transfer the songs to your mp3 player etc.

Apple has taken a very different direction and seems to be quite successful. It's simply a matter of people wanting to be able to use what they purchase, which they couldn't do with the older music stores.

Perhaps, but Mac users are indeed ready to fork out money for the Apple name. I don't think I know a single Mac user that uses a different MP3 player than iPod.
Heck, I thik that if Apple made ovens, refrigerators and furniture, everything in their house would have the Apple brand.

I don't see the problem.......... buy if you want, don't if you don't want. If you don't have the 10 bucks (or less) to spare, I can sympathized with you, often I don't have any spare cash, but it's the same in stores, they have all sorts of things, I would love to have.............. I can't afford them, so I don't get them. I don't ask the saleperson to give it to me for free. I don't think the argument  "I bought this computer from you, so all the software you have available, should be free" would get anything other than a blank stare. As for this suggestion that maybe the price should be lowered to $1 a skin....... pu-leeze........ my skins might only be worth a dollar (collectively), but Pixstudio, SkinPlant, Mormegil, these guys are way beyond that. And, as many have already pointed out, most of their stuff is free.

Music comparing to skins is like comparing apples and oranges.

Besides CD's usually have about 15 songs on it for 16.99; or somwhere in those where abouts... so 99 cents a song kinda makes sense.

There is also mass appeal for music, while skins are sort of in another category right now. Anybody can play music, but not everybody can use the skins (some have to purchase a program to use it)

I could see a dollar a skin but I'll bet you that there will be 8 skins in the pack sold for 8 dollars

at any rate, I wouldn't worry about payfor-skins ruining the skin community just yet. I do think though we should be careful and mindful of the ethics and basis of the community.

Koasati, I believe I also suggested that WC experiment with different prices until they find the one that brings in the most money.

My $1 was an example. Another example, I'd pay (at most) $1 for that cursor pack that just came out, but I'd spend $5 for PixOS.

You just need to experiment until you find the best price. The goal here is to bring in the most money, not to squeeze more money out of fewer buyers for a resultant smaller profit.

My 2 cents on the subject....

Selling skins is a very new thing, people for the last...oh 4 or 5 years have been loving all the FREE skins, now that skinning is becoming more popular, ofcourse the natural direction for it to take is to sell them. Money makes the world go 'round. Now you got these super-talented artists, like Pixtudio and Mormegil, and Skinplant that make the best skins around...bar none. They see it as a viable source of income. Look at it through their eyes, if you were the best basketball player, wouldn't you want to try for the NBA and make lots of money? Yes, you would. So the best skinners want to sell their skins for money! How can people complain? If you were as good as they were, you too would sell your skins. If things keep going the way they are, skinning will become a very mainstream thing. Five years from now, I wouldn't be suprised to see a site like DAPrints.com selling skins in the same fashion. Hell, even three years from now that could be very possible. It's just natural for people to bitch about it, they are so used to getting skins for free, they take it for granted. In my opinion, skins for sale is here to stay and I think it's a good thing.

Something to bear in mind Aqua is that even though it's your opinion that certain premium skins/themes/whatever aren't worth the asking price, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're in the majority. For all you know, there could be a sufficiently high percentage of buyers that lowering the price would reduce profits.

I've been unemployed on an almost-permenant ba sis for well over a year and a half now, so I'm well aware of what it's like to have limited finances. I wouldn't ever think of suggesting that they lower their prices just because I don't have the money to meet them though. I'm sure I could scrape together the $10 without too much trouble if I felt the need, but I feel by contributing to the community and trying to produce the best work I can is a form of payment in itself.

I have to say, I was very tempted by a couple of the premium skin packs, but my reluctance to buy them had more to do with the frequency with which I change my desktop than the price they were asking. As a skinner myself I've pretty much always got one of my own in-production skins on my machine.

I know, and I'm not asking them to lower the price because my income is rather low right now.

I'm saying that they could probably get more volume with a lower price, and end up with more money. $1 probably is too low, but I think they should experiment with their prices.

Well, the price is not very high IMHO. It is about the price of a Dutch cinema ticket. I know what time goes in such a project and I am surprised it is that low. And no, I am not rich.

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MadIce, I know what you're saying. I'm saying that they could probably get more money than they are currently if the experiment with various lower prices.

They would more than make up in volume what they would lose on individual sales.

The point of the store is to bring in as much money as possible.

I tell you a little story. About 20 years ago I tried to sell 40 drawings which I initially made for myself. Friends asked me to show them in an exposition. And by chance I had an opportunity to do so. The prices were low. About $25 each. I didn't sell any. There was another exposition. Even more professional than the first one. Again, I didn't sell any. The third time I tried I gave the drawings names and increased the prices to somewhere between $200 and $500 dollar each. Within a month I sold all of them. Moral of the story? The pictures didn't sell earlier, because they were too cheap.

The same goes for the skins. $1 is too cheap, makes the product unbelievable and it will not sell.