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I have a chrome extension that I think is fairly useful. It's already been posted and is free. How can I start charging for it with the Chrome webstore? $.99 or some such.

Mark
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    Somebody will take your idea, implement it, and make it available for free. – Mahmoud Hossam Mar 07 '11 at 22:41
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    I'm not sure why, but everyone is "answering" this question as if it were "Should I?" instead of "How can I?". It's offtopic! – Matthew Read Mar 08 '11 at 00:05
  • @Matthew Read: Usually there's a very fine line between the two. To blow it out of proportion, here's an example: If someone were to ask you "Can I jump off a cliff?" would you answer "Sure!" or would you caution them against such an action? Sometimes people don't think of valid and relevant alternatives (ie, a donation button in this case) that may do even better at what they are trying to achieve (in this case, presumably turn a profit). Personally, I see a donation button as being a better option than charging .99c to whoever will pay. – Matthew Scharley Mar 08 '11 at 01:07
  • @Matthew Scharley: I don't think that's relevant to whether StackExchange answers are actually *answers*, personally. I understand your point, but advice itself doesn't constitute an answer. Were anyone to answer this question well it would be an *objective* answer; that indicates to me that the question is offtopic. – Matthew Read Mar 08 '11 at 01:19
  • @MS: But you're right that Mark may just not have thought of alternatives; my preferred method of helping him expand his question a little would be to comment here and suggest it, rather than answer the possible future question. Maybe I'm just too accustomed to the "objective" SEs, so I withdraw my complaint. – Matthew Read Mar 08 '11 at 01:23
  • @Matthew Read: I read your comment as saying the answers are off-topic, and it's entirely possible I'm wrong too. The answers that have been given belong attached to this question somehow though, and comments often aren't the best way of doing suggestions for better solutions (in my personal opinion). In the case of a particularly poor question where there are lots of alternate suggestions the comments thread can get very unwieldy, and they are technically answers in that they provide solutions to the problem given. – Matthew Scharley Mar 08 '11 at 01:51
  • @MR: They just do not give the asker positive reinforcement (which is usually what these types of questions are looking for). If the asker really cared if it was technically possible, they would log in to the Chrome Store and look. If they had done that, then one would hope they would mention they had, and I'm sure Mark would have had much different answers (more towards what you are looking for) if he'd looked and found nothing and mentioned such. – Matthew Scharley Mar 08 '11 at 01:53

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If the extension is already free and you didn't note that there is a "free period" when it was originally posted then you might be better off updating it to be donation-ware and providing some sort of link to a "tip jar" that people can donate a buck or two towards. Likewise, if there is an improvement you could make to the extension that would be a major difference, you could release it separately as a "pro" version and charge for that one, but only if there is a significant usefulness to the newer version and you are still supporting the free version.

rjzii
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I don't think that would work out very well. There are just too many extensions that look like they'll be awesome, but later prove to be not so awesome. I wouldn't pay for something I couldn't try for a while first.

If an extension does make my job easier, I'm happy to donate far more than your suggested price of $0.99, I usually send someone $5 - $10 and a nice e-mail. I've sent people cash for useful greasemonkey scripts in the past.

Just let people know that you're much more enthused about making improvements if the extension buys you a nice lunch a few days a week.

Tim Post
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It's yours!! If you feel like charging for it, then Charge for it!

What's the worst that could happen? The people who weren't paying for it will decide to not buy it?

Morons
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Don't do it bro! Chrome webstore is pretty much free right now. Plus...who is really going to buy something from the chrome webstore...

Ben
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  • That sounds like a catch-22! (But indeed, I have a hard time imagining what I might even *consider* paying for on the webstore.) – Michael Urman Mar 09 '11 at 15:21