I agree, good point. Those of us not involved in the dispute can just be passersby…
This thread is orientated toward Flightsim.to and the 3rd party developers disagreements and It appears that Flightsim.to does not encourage or want this type discussion on their forums.… Interesting ~ !
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Just noticed there is absolutely no way of posting anything on their Discord any more.
Which makes it overwhelmingly useless.
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Strange isn’t it ?
Everything has been closed even before march 5th
Their TOYS – If they want to silence their own Discord, that is up to them – and a sure way to loose community support –
A total PR disaster from the start of this whole Fiasco.
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It is ALL about $$$ and it IS Their Business, however, I stopped visiting the site for now… and that, my fellow flyers, is MY Business… Smile
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Ok, do we have another platform to replace the evil flightsim.to?
Having recently removed all my liveries from Flightsim.to there isn’t anything that is as slick and as polished as Flightsim.to.
Flightsim.com, Flyawaysimulation.com are probably the next closest but they don’t have anything like the variety of content. Although the fantastic Global Ship Traffic is only available from these 2 sites. And then there Rikoooo which has a similar look but is a very small site. Avsim.com is another although its interface is quite old. All of these have been around for way longer than Flightsim.to and have the trust of many of the long term flight sim community.
Flightsim.to has pretty much a monopoly at the moment and that is never a good thing. Maybe its time to give the smaller established sites some support in the way of content they so they can compete. That’s my plan anyway.
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So instead of one platform, we now need to visit multiple, which we don’t even know yet what they are, to keep our add-ons updated?
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Not much different than anyone who’s spread their purchases out across multiple stores. I make it a point to visit each one monthly. Good thing is I have email alerts telling me hey a product got updated, so I don’t miss pushes too often.
Does the MSFS Marketplace have an email alert system for updated products ?
Not that I know of. Usually you will see updates when you enter the Main Menu though. The notifications icon at the top of the screen next to your GamerTag will have a blue number indicating some action needs to be taken, usually saying “You have updates.” Seeing as you can’t really push Marketplace Updates any other way than to be in the sim, that’s not a show-stopper IMO.
There arent that many sites providing the service we use from flightsim.to
I think it is in the interest of the simming community to help them reach a satisfactory compromise with developers.
I think, we all could relax a bit…
This topic was solved some good time ago already, the “discussed” details of the TOS where changed, most devs have accepted this and keep releasing via fs.to.
Some others have dacided to leave fs.to, offering their addons via different sites and/or discord channels. Maybe some of them might come back one finer day. Only future will tell.
Currently the thing is solved. Nothing to see. Let´s move along.
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I would characterize it more as “closed” rather than “solved.” It remains to be seen what the future holds. I too thought that things were mostly going to go back the way they were, but I was really dismayed to see how fs.to treated a very active livery creator when his own work was taken and re-uploaded.
Very few of my add ons have been updated recently. It feels like many creators are stepping back. If this is temporary or permanent, it’s too soon to tell.
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I’m in multiple stores, are the update emails automatic, or is it a necessity to check each plane for updates by visiting the store?
If you think you can relax, then do so. Whether this is generally valid, as you present it, may be doubted:
Also whether the issue with flightsimto and their ToS can be considered solved is more than doubtful. What was solved?
- They continue to change their ToS at will and do not inform their users. But refer in every second sentence in personal communication with “concluded contracts”.
- So far no apology to the lies, no deletions were rejected before 25 Feb 2023.
- No apologies for portraying their users and creators of add-ons as liars to. They deletions before 25 Feb.
- The childish behavior of those responsible with the termination of the business partnership of flightsim.to to Gotfriends?
- Violations of their own ToS! Allegedly deleted add-ons were still freely downloadable until March 11. With a few modifications, they are still accessible today.
- Transferring personal data to different countries inside and outside the EU before agreeing to the privacy policy or coooky policy? Small reminder: the site is operated from Germany and therefore the EU!
- Restricting downloads for normal users from over 200 Mbps to under 35 Mbps since mid-February? Although it was said, these accounts will not be restricted? Premium would only bring advantages for premium customers, but no disadvantages for non-premium?
- Offering to raise this limitation to 50 MBit/s for 8 (!!!) EUR per month? And calling these 50 MBit/sec “Guaranteed Ultra Fast Downloads”?
- In total, paying 8 EUR per month to get only 25% of the performance of 4 weeks ago?
- Blocking all public communication with representatives of flightsim.to? Be it their forums or Discord channels?
- …
Some of it may be legal if you can afford a Tonga domain for 10 times the price of a normal domain (com, org, net, …), but whether it is legitimate, user friendly and whether this is in the interest of the customers, they have to decide.
Actually, it should be clear to everyone what is going on there, if only a little thought is put into it.
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It depends on the store and your personal preferences when you registered for an account there. Personally I send it all to an alt account so I don’t mind if it’s spam. Eventually I go in there, pare it down as the reliable stores often have a “subscription type/preferences” - I just go for updates only if there’s such an option.
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I see they’re taking a page out of Self Loading Cargo’s playbook then, what a disaster.
I predict that FS.TO will be alive and well despite those who decide to take their work elsewhere. In other words, these people will find that they are not as important as they may think.
The developers need to realize that they would not have enjoyed as much admiration as they have, if not for the popularity of FS.TO.
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The exact opposite argument could also be made. What would fs.to be without those developers?
I’m also not sure most freeware developers do what they do for admiration. I think most of them love simming and that’s why they do it.
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