You also stand the risk of the plugin (add-ons) making the system as a whole unreasonable. As a real-world example, I own, but do not use Homeseer Pro. I paid several hundred dollars for a license, then HS abandoned Insteon development leaving it up to a plugin developer. His plugin is only $60, but it doesn’t cover every Insteon device; if I want to use my Insteon Thermostats and EZflora irrigation, that’s two more plugins at $30 each (last time I checked) from two other developers. Then there’s the Onkyo, and Pioneer receivers I have - yep more plugins. Then Roku, Arduino, MQTT, Sonos, etc... and before you know it I’ve spent considerably more on plugins than I did the core SW purchase, with only best-effort, when available, sporadic support.
That’s why my Homeseer Pro license sits on a shelf, and will never be renewed. It lost its value; not by a direct failure on its part, but because of its reliance on the monetized plugin ecosystem it created.
I’m all for supporting the developers, however, and perhaps the plugins should have a quick and easy link to PayPal, patrion, or similar to make donations easier.
Terry
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