Actually, the revenue is generally generated from views, NOT clicks. In other words, you make money for WoWI wether or not you visit the sponsors page.

Ohhh... Dish for $9.99? *Wanders off*

So the new way to do things is to use the official addon updating programs provided by Curse and WoWInterface. Too bad they suck ass. Maybe you guy should consider working WITH the WoWMatrix team instead of against them?

What WoWI/Curse site do you use that requires you to pay before you can download an addon? I'll make sure to stay well away from it if there is such a site.

Addon sites are not like stores at all (thankfully), any analogy based of this assumption has pretty much no value.

Maybe you should consider reading the previous posts and discovering that they tried and WM refused?

I'm not an admin here so I don't know the official answer, but consider that to run a site that hosts files for downloads requires:

* servers and disk drives for storing and serving the files
* electricity to run the servers and the keep the room they're in cool
* system admins to keep the servers running
* high-end outgoing switchers (routers) to handle the downloads
* employees to design the systems and support them

All these things cost real money. WowInterace and Curse had two realistic ways they could have chosen to get that money.

* charge the users who download the addons
* charge advertisers for ads

There's just no way they can run a hosting site without paying the expenses so they MUST have a source of revenue. I don't love ads either and I could choose to subvert WowInterface by using Adblocker, but it just feels wrong to me. I feel grateful to Curse and WowInterface that they provide this service for the low cost of putting some ads in my face.

Now unless I'm mistaken, WoWI has operated quite happily without an automatic updater for some time, and I have no doubt could continue to do so with or without an updater. Now whatever way you want to look at it, WoWMatrix was slowly killing this wonderful website as has been shown by the 50% drop in bandwidth use after the block was put in place, and all WoWI has done is remove this parasite.

The "cost" of using WoWI/Curse is having ads displayed to me. That's what I "pay" and that's how WoWI/Curse gets compensated for the costs they incur to run their sites.

Wont this drop in bandwith be replaced by all the users migrating to the WoWUI program?

First time poster who started off by thinking "What a bunch of jerks." Reading the thread, my views have changed. Here are some of my thoughts based on what I read:

Seems to me the issue for most of those pissed at Curse and WoWInterface is that they are blocking an application which does the job well in updating.

Unfortunately, Curse isn't helping the case much. On WoWInsider, their representative is basically saying "Use our downloader," while ignoring the issues which make their downloader so unpopular.

The admins/mods here at least explain their position well. I personally was unaware of the fact that WM was contacted and refused to deal, and that their program hit the site so hard.

I would recommend perhaps giving your official explanation to sites like WoWInsider for the short term. I mean, *I* didn't know of these issues, and I bet a lot of people who are like me did not know either of the hardship WM causes. On sites like WoWInsider, the apologists for your sites are giving some "dumbed down" explanations which sound more like excuses than the valid reasons I saw here.

In the long term, you guys need a better updater. The fact that WoWInterface doesn't work, and Curse's is largely viewed as little more than malware is causing a great deal of ill-will among the WoW gamers. From the user perspective, WM works extremely well, and we want something like that. hell, even something that worked 80% as well would be good enough.

I'm guessing the dropping the bomb on WM the day before the patch was self-defense for your bandwidth. Fair enough. But timing was bad and us end-users who don't manage websites don't know your problems and it is bad for us. (Remember we are people who treat it as a war atrocity when Blizz is late bringing the game back up after a patch).

TL: DR version:
1) Short term - explain your reasons better on sites like WoWInsider
2) Please, for the love of God, make a better downloader program we can use.

Are you new to the internet? Forums and comments were like this way before WoW.

I simpy cannot believe the number of people whining about WM being blocked by Curse and WoWI. I've been using manual updates almost exclusively since I discovered WoWI. I used WM briefly and decided I didn't like it, because when I update I like to read the update notes posted by the authors themselves. In the short time I used WM I had way too many things get screwed up in my personal ui simply because WM didn't give direct access to a changelog. Call me old-school or whatever, but having to click a few extra buttons is a cheap price to pay for having all the information on an updated addon. I'll go so far as to say that even when the WoWI updater comes out I most likely won't use it for those reasons.

How many addons are you running? Some people run 50+, that is not just a few buttons to click.

So if I were to use AdBlock I'd be stealing?


Nowhere near. WM is inefficient in the way it checks, and as I posted, I expect a good part of the drop in bandwidth will be people not bothering checking. even for people who go manual, you are less likely to check as often manually as you are with a simple three-click program.

I run...just shy of 140 mods. Cutting out plugins, submods, etc, leave me with about 90ish. I use the Curse Client for most of them, and the rest are all on WoWI. I have them as Favorites and get a nifty little email when they update, which has a link to go to the download page.

I used to update them all manually, back when the Curse Client was much less usable. It's not difficult, even if you run lots of mods. Most mods don't need frequent updates.

*edit* I run AdBlock simply because there have been so many instance of ad providers not policing what they serve up well enough. That's one of the reasons I got a premium membership here. I like the site and would rather hand money directly to them then via potentially unsafe ads. *shrug*

Well, read my post above (#165)

Use favorites.
And also, there is no need to update everytime one of the addons you're using is released. If people find updating addons so boring why do they feel such a need to do it so often, just do it when an addon breaks.

I currently am running some 83 or so addons, not all are used on every character. The thing is, when addons are updated, they generally are not all updated at one time. Even on big patch days like today they haven't all been updated. And if they do, my preferance would still be to manually update. It's just not that difficult.

Look, it's as simple as this...

If you need to leech off larger hosts in order for your application to run, you are nothing more than a parasite, regardless of whether or not your application is a "superior" product. The fact you are positioning yourself as a leech tells people you want to talk the talk without walking the walk. Put your damned money where your mouth is and pay for your own bandwidth. Get author's permission to host their files, abide by their permissions, and serve your own application.

If your product is such a great application, it should be able to stand on its own, without regard for anyone's opinion or policy at WoW Interface, Curse, or some other guy's website. If it's dodgy and you need to rely on technicalities for success, you probably don't deserve that success and you get what you deserve.

There are right ways and wrong ways of doing things. WoW Matrix, in my opinion, seems like it's being run by a bunch of 14 yr olds with good ideas but who haven't a clue how to be professional in their approach to the community.

Bottom line - borrowing someone's bandwidth for your own purposes is highly unprofessional and in some cases, can even be criminal. I couldn't care less to use an application that is nothing more than a parasite, regardless of whether or not it has its own merits. Anyone who has ever hosted or sold bandwidth to website owners hates applications like this. Ask around. Leechers are one of the primary causes of driving up the costs of site hosting, maintenance, etc.

WoW Interface is one of the only websites I know of in all of gaming that makes consistently appropriate choices while implementing consistently proper policies and changes. Curse, and a few others also do a good job, but I don't think any are as professionally maintained as this one.

You can criticize policy all you want. You guys who may (or may not be) associated with WoW Matrix should take away one thing from this (or any other relevant) discussion, and that is - become a stand-alone product. Get with authors, get permission, rent out your own file servers, pump your application from your own bandwidth. If you truly want to be the "superior" product you claim to be, man up and be just that. Don't come around parts like this being a blowhard because people here protect their own. You have no right to do so.

Go leech from yourself. Leave the legitimate community alone. It is my opinion that it's a bit late to garner the support of most authors though. I think this has been approached entirely wrong and very immaturely.

Anyway, food for thought.

Yeah! What those last two guys said! lol

It doesn't matter. They will be serving their own application. You know, in an honorable non-thieving manner. Their bandwidth is their own. They aren't using someone else's for their application. If they put together an updater and pay for its bandwidth, it's no business of anyone else.