Profitability of selling scripts

Can you make a living at it?

[WallaceCleaver]

I have seen quite a few people selling PHP, cgi, etc. in the code directories and I was wondering if anyone is making a decent amount of money doing this. Do people actually buy these or simply bypass them for the free scripts?

[grandpa]

I write my own. Much more fun than buying one or obtaining a free one and trying to figure it out. So no, they aren't making any money from me.

OTOH - I'm keeping an open mind that one of these days I'll write a fantastic script that everyone will want, making me the next internet billionaire.

[mincklerstraat]

I have not yet tried selling any scripts (am thinking of doing so), but I'd guess that it would be pretty difficult. You need to have a script that's pretty unique, some real selling points. If it's highly specific, tailor-made for a certain type of task or public, that's a plus since it's easier to make a script that's unique - if you're thinking 'forum board', 'content management system', or 'link directory', you have some huge competition. The drawback of those highly specific scripts is you need to get in to that market. You need to get your script known, and the people to your site. This can be a much bigger pain than writing it.

If it's not so specific, you need to reach a certain threshold before your script is fairly well-known and people actually come to your site to download it - or you need to already have a site that is visited and trusted enough that visitors won't end up shopping and settling for the free ones.

If it really is pretty dang unique in a number of ways, and it won't put too much of a dent in your life writing it, I'd say, go for it - but not just for the financial stake. If it doesn't fly commercially, you can benefit many still by making it open source.