"Why doesn't Blender just sell add-ons on its own platform for money?"

I've seen posts asking this several times over the past several years. Now that I think about it, ever since Blender Foundation has been more proactive in asking for donations.

Posts often pull Blender Market into this, that they are profiting off at the expense of the Blender Foundation. I cannot speak for them. But I can say that the Blender Market donates to the Blender Foundation. As a Blender Market creator, part of my proceeds go to the foundation. Many creators do the same. I know some that give 100% of profits.

Blender Foundation already sells cloud subscriptions to access production files and learning materials. They have demonstrated over the past several years that they would rather sell those than add-ons (now part of extensions).

The new amazing brushstroke tool by the wickedly talented Simon Thommes? Freely available on the extensions platform. Under GPL, no questions asked.

Frankly, the idea sounds strange to me: Blender owning a market to sell extensions as additional functionality to its own software. Then why bother adding functionality from community extensions into native Blender, when you can get money selling it as add-ons?

Blender Foundation has asked us to donate directly. Asking them to go about another method feels wrong to me. They have told us, time and time again, how they want to be supported. Let us, as a community, respect that.

I love Blender, donate to it, and make very little money from using it (honestly, probably at a net loss at this point!).

If you use Blender and are able to donate, please do. It is genuinely one of the few causes I donate to. And I cancelled nearly all my subscriptions in the past year, except for this one!

That’s it, that’s the newsletter. I’ve got a couple projects brewing that I’m excited to share here over the next few months.

Happy Thanksgiving. And in the words of You’ve Got Mail,