What is good about Michael Torbet's approach is that it precisely targets the people to whom it is worth $39 to appear more professional to their clients (who might be alarmed to see ads in the dashboard of a website they've paid thousands for), without crippling the plugin for users who cannot afford to pay, including the many WordPress users in the developing world who often get forgotten when Americans discuss what is and is not affordable - talking about something being the same price as "a few coffees in Starbucks", which seems to be the new American currency, is perverse when your userbase includes people in the communities that pick the coffee, getting paid LESS than the price of a Starbucks coffee for a hard day's labor.

If a Web Designer in Cupertino is using WP as a CMS for his corporate clients, paying $39 is a no-brainer. If, on the other hand, a teacher in Tanzania is running the website for his school, having to look at ads in the dashboard is fine, he will need that $39 for far more important things. I absolutely thank Michael for deciding to take this inclusive approach and I hope that more paid plugin authors will consider adopting it too.

What really sucks, however, is that Michael has decided to throw in his lot with a deeply deceptive marketplace that, quite deliberately, does not make it clear that the listed price buys you only ONE download. Nowhere in their plugin listings is this made clear and customers will, of course, presume that updates are included in the price, because that is the way that more honest paid plugin companies such as GravityForms and AjaxEditComments do it.

The irony is that, while lesser known plugin authors might feel they need the attention that a marketplace can bring, Michael has one of the most successful plugins of all time and could easily have handled sales from his own sites, using a more honest system that either includes updates or, at least, makes in clear that the customer will have to pay again and again.

The owners of that dishonest marketplace have been extremely vocal about their right to sell plugins, whipping up 99% of the FUD that has been swirling about WordPress over the past year, but the reality is that they, themselves, with their deceptive approach, are doing more to undermine and sully the concept of paid plugins than anyone else.