WordPress prides itself with its open source model because they have hundreds of people all over the world working on the software at a given time. It also means that WP is free for the taking (as well as enhancing and using it any way you wish).
Automattic (WordPress’s parent company) has encouraged theme and plugin developers to follow this same mantra, yet there has been some uproar (which we will not get into) about the fact that these coders put their hearts and soul into their work and get little back in terms of monetary reward.
This “free”dom comes with some tradeoffs, however. You have to be willing to take on any inherent risks and responsibilities for making the software work the way you want it to. Luckily, WordPress’s vast army of developers is more than happy to help you along the way.
Further, you may end up “getting what you paid for.” For example, there are plenty of free themes for the taking all over the internet. Sure they may look good in the demo, but lurking inside can be spam links, as well as bad, inefficient, and buggy coding which not only spawn evil processes, but often these themes don’t work correctly in all modern browsers.
We get it – most internet users feel everything should be free. We love the free stuff, too, but ContentRobot would like to make the case for paid themes and plugins. Why should you pony up the extra bucks? You get:
- Clean, spam-free, quality coding
- Functionality that works as advertised
- Professional technical support that can quickly help squash any bugs or add more features
So save yourself both time and energy and consider paying for quality products. You’ll thank your self and help a hard-working coder out at the same time.