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I have 3 rules about investing in fine art:
- Has to be an original work of art
- I buy it directly from the artist who is making a full time living at art
- I have to actually like it.
These same three rules apply almost without change to investing my time into a WordPress theme.
Has to be original
It just makes no sense to me to purchase art that isn’t original. Sure, I get that “limited edition” prints have some value, but I just don’t feel that value in my gut. Not like with an original. I have experience here. Among the very few pieces I own is Jessen’s Times Square Reflections.
Ok, for software, this is a bit of stretch but stay with me. Unlike art, source code can be infinitely replicated for almost no cost. However, originality can be measured in other ways, such as design or engineering. Really well-written software just works better. It has an intangible feel to it that comes through during use.
This is even true with WordPress themes. Thesis is really well designed to take the kind of styling abuse I heap on it. I’ve broken lesser themes.
Full time living
Artists depending on their art to eat and pay rent are going to take their art, and their customers, very seriously.
Artists making the rent are in it for the long haul. In the long haul, I might just get my purchase price back out, adjusted for inflation. I already have 2 pieces of 7 that I could get my purchase price from. The others, no, but that’s ok.
Premium themes developed for WordPress by programmers who depend on theme sales for their livelihood are a good deal for me. It’s not likely these programmers are going to walk from their code. They’re going to take their coding very, very seriously.
In contrast, if a Free Software/GPL theme is abandoned, who’s going to take up the maintenance and development? You? Ok, but you do know that 90% of the code out there is crap, WordPress theme code included. Sure, you could pay someone. Maybe Vlad Prelovac. He’s really good, wrote a book. Wait, he’s $200/hr! Now you’ve just multiplied your cost of doing business by an order of magnitude. Much cheaper to have purchased a premium theme to begin with.
And do you really want to put your website in the hands of someone working at the lowest dollar?
Have to like it
This should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: if I don’t like it, I won’t buy it!
(Unfortunately, while it’s true of art, it’s not always true of software. I always end up buying MS Office, even though I hardly ever use it! Everyone else uses it, so I have to as well.)
Does Open Source matter?
There’s a bit of brouhaha been going on in the WordPress community concerning premium themes. Some people believe all themes should be GPL (free software) licensed because they depend on WordPress functions to operate. Others claim that the dependency is no different than code running on the Linux kernel. Hrm… this is going to get way too deep, way too fast. Let’s stop here and agree that people disagree about premium themes.
Make no mistake: I am a firm believer in open source software in general, and the GPL in particular. You don’t have to take my word for it; go to sourceforge.net and see for yourself. But in the case of premium themes, I don’t care at all whether professional WordPress themes are GPL or not. I just need them to work, and I prefer having someone with an emotional and financial interest backing their own work.
What’s your opinion? Do you use a professional theme? Why or why not?
