I have paid for a lot of peoples profiles over the years but ive been away for a long time and i come back to pure greed. I dont mind donating or paying but some of these prices is just straight greed. This is what this has come to...
Like Tony said, it's pure optional. I just bought my first two packs because it is well worth it for me. Alternative is to make profiles and go make money for yourself
There the Trial option comes! Each potential customer could trial out the most paid products and examine on his own, if this product could server to his "greediness" or not. Here an example from my experience for own product (useless nowadays): After Tanaan Jungle was out, I uploaded to the store a product, farming Felblight, rated at 7eur or similar. Few weeks later a fellow customer reported that this was his best 7eur spent for the WoW botting, because he have earned more than 4 million gold on just 3 accounts, farming Felblight 24/7 straight for 3 weeks, before they got banned. Nowadays this product is obviously useless, since Felblight is just 5-10g each, but a year ago, Felblight was going for 200-300g, so this customer made quite a few bucks, while using just a single Buddy Store product.
I know how you feel, In WoD I bought a rogue combat routine for 20euro (?)... It is still not 100% complete, the developer hasnt updated it since and its been removed from the store. Yet im still 20 euro down Going to invest in TuanHA, the Only combat routine Ive seen that actually works through each expansion. (And I loved trialling it)
TuanHa's stuff is not completely updated for 7.0 last time I check, he has a lot of routines and he tends to rewrite a lot of script each expansion. Both TuanHa and Millz are my go to. Should always trials things that you can before you buy them, some aren't finished, never get optimized and die on the vine.
I think the money paid to some developers is an excellent investment in them and their desire to improve on it / maintain it. WoW and HB are updated a lot so the existing products often need a lot of rework. An HB dev with items on the store has to commit to an 18 month support contract of sorts I believe. Devs like Studio60, Millz, Brodieman and Tuanha to name but a few (and by no means is that list comprehensive so apologies if I didn't give you a 'shout-out'!) are excellent in their support and work ethic. I have been stung by some products not working or being supported - Akatosh Quester (eu29.99), Garrison Butler ICE Edition (eu24.99), Templar (eu12.99), etc. etc. and there are those that are no longer relevant like Ultimate Ashran. That said, I do have some disposable and this is a minor hobby in my life. HB has caused my account to be banned, but that's a calculated risk I was willing to take as I would have given up on WoW years ago otherwise. Lots could improve and hopefully will. Overall I do support the model and see it is probably the only way a game with a slowly dwindling player base and a bot with the same can keep going and incentivise the devs to stay.
