I don't have many freebies here as compared to some contributors, and my freebies are not any of the more popular ones.  However, once a paid version of accounts kicks in at ShareCG, I can immediately consider other alternatives to place my freebies.  It is simple economic behaviour.

Alternatives for this would be to make announcements in Renderosity freebie forum (where it is allowed), followed by links to SkyDrive or Gdrive (google drive), or even simply to offer my freebies at Content Paradise.

So, unless the value-add is unique and superior, it would be tough to justify a paid account at ShareCG for distributing my own freebies.

I found out about this plan when it was discussed on another forum (I didn't get any notification), and I was surprised, because in October 2010 ShareCG was offering to share revenue from advertising with uploaders. That wasn't so long ago, and I find it difficult to believe that the economy is worse now than it was then.

My free stuff is mostly on Renderosity. I suppose it will stay that way.

i have to agree; the idea of paying for an account to distribute my FREE models/props to other artists is bogus, at best.  i would guess that our free models/fx/tutorials are the very attractions that drive virtually all traffic to the site and the best idea anybody can come up with to make the site self-sustaining is to start charging the artists an annual fee to share their work? Artists and pixel-engineers who've already donated countless hours of hard work, skill and creativity in support of the site should be offered a better deal up front, at the very least.  Between Nov15-Dec15, they should offer a charter membership deal of a one-time-only lifetime subscription price of $50 or less, then offer the never-2b-increased $10 a year to everyone after Dec15.  For the 'New Features' that are being considered for paying subscribers, the price is too high. i would like to support the site but the methods being offered teeter on the edge of ridiculous.

I think it is important to have a free site and to keep ShareCG free. It has developed a brand on this name within the graphics community that should be leveraged, not changed.

Two things I notice right away from their model. First, there's not much traffic at this Forum. If I posted at Daz there would be hundreds to a thousand views on a subject like this. Even Renderosity, which doesn't have as strong a set of Forums, would have more to say on a subject like this. 

Actually there IS a thread dedicated to this topic at Daz which has over 4,000 views:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/8486/

You should be able to build a forum on a free site such as this and have more stickiness. And a free site such as this should in theory be probabaly the least biased towards having discussions about all the other companies who pay to have products out there. How does eHow or other sites make their revenue?  Wikipedia?

Second, the ads are generic. While I'm here I'm more likely to click on an ad that talks about other 3d items, other 3d sites, 3d magazines, other graphics programs, reviews on graphics equipment, from monitors to motherboards, gaming, etc. you get the idea.

Third, people grow. I can see where beginners look to post to the widest possible audience first and then later get to a point where they think, 'maybe I can sell some of these items.'  If you're going to make it 'pay' think about expanding and make a sister organization separate from share CG where ther poster gets some share of what is put up. The thing is, then you're going to have to have some sort of support organization to monitor the quality control and eventually generate excitement.

I think there is still a lot of opportunity here.

That's all I've got for right now.

Be well.

"If Life gives you melons, maybe you are dyslexsic; If life gives you Lemons, keep them. Hey, FREE Lemons!" (Snorg T-Shirts; See -  I do click on some of the ads!).

seems a bit of a contradiction to have a paying site for free shared products, especially when the artists themselves get nothing. on the other hand, i can understand that when a business goes belly up, it's either they go down and the site disappears - to our big dismay - or somehow money has to be generated.

10$ isn't that much (especially compared to the VIP memberships on Rendo & DAZ!!), i'm pretty tight with my budget too but i could afford it, which i can't with mentioned VIPs. BUT until a while ago, i didn't have an international ccard nor paypal, and if this had been a pay site, i couldn't have joined, even for the only 10$.

so i think what could be done is leave the site free as it is, but offer VIPs, though to under 50$/year...