Loosing single purchases is really stupid, was gonna buy the death cleric but its gone and im not spending money on 30$ for it. Oh well friend has the dms guide irl will just do it the old fashion way.
Hey folks! I am going to make a wider post about this, but as the most active thread on the forums about the marketplace changes, it seemed prudent to start here.
Regarding partial purchases: if you want to buy a book that you made a la carte/individual purchases from, you must contact customer service to receive your discount. The marketplace article has been updated to reflect this.
I have a feeling they aren't going to back this up soon, especially since it has been radio silence from someone other than you in this forum. We know they will only consider changing it back once it hits their bottom line.
At the time I write this there are 24 pages on just this discussion alone, and the same conversation is happening on other parts of the forum as well as other online circles. It is near fully unanimous in the negative view of WotC and DDB for this change. Yet they've said nothing in the past 2 weeks, not even acknowledge they've heard us.
If WoTC / Hasbro refuse to back pedal on the marketplace change, then what they should certainly do is make sure all future purchases of physical books, whether that be at a FLGS, Amazon, or other third party, they include a redemption code for the digital content bundle. I only buy alt covers, which can only be done at a FLGS. I am not given the liberty of the option to tack on the digital content for $10 more and that certainly does not encourage me to buy a bundle direct from DDB. Have us provide a proof of purchase for redemption code for those who've bought books after the change. And all future books be shipped in some wrapping so that a single use coupon code can be included inside to get the digital content. College textbooks do that as an option, and honestly I'd be fine with that. What I'm not okay with is dropping $60 on a physical book and then another $30-40 to use just one subclass or magic item.
But until there is some sort of change, instead of getting periodic $5-$10 purchases from the vast majority of us, they'll get none. Thousands of people spending $5 adds to more than a few hundred spending $30. Add in the loss of subscriptions and they'll be in the red fast. We aren't suggesting changes, we're promising boycott.
I tried to look up the numbers but it looks like they sell about a million books at the big box stores alone a year.
If they only make 10 bucks a book thats about 10 million a year in book sales.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here. Maybe half as much in total counting memberships and sales.
They know the numbers though and have a plan to make more money.
take monsters of the multiverse: it has 30 species, had $2 for a single species piece-meal, for that same investment you can get the digital and physical copy (unsure about shipping).
That's not how the piecemeal worked. You'd only pay up to the total cost of the book. When you bought enough of the individual species that section became fully paid for and the rest was included. If you bought enough to hit the $29 (or however much the full digital source cost) that was it and you got the rest. If the book ever went on sale, it would be the discounted price minus what you already spent. It never went above the original cost.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
I'm much less concerned with whether ala carte was a major profit center. it was a digital tool with some level of positive return on investment. I'm more concerned with them removing useful functionality without warning.
actually, it's worse if it wasn't very profitable. if direct profitability is the motivator, what's next? character portrait image hosting? "legacy" dice? the forever-beta encounter tracker?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
d&d beyond decision-makers: bring back a-la carte. please. literally every single piece of feedback i have seen about the removal of this has been negative.
your community, your customers, are crying out for this to return; as are our d&d beyond using friends who aren't commenting on the forums or in the discord server.
since all higher-up decision makers seem to care about are profits and - let's be honest - have absolutely no idea nor care about your community base and their opinions (spoken from my own career experience working for an extremely similar business model), let me put it this way from a corporate employee standpoint:
not acknowledging this mistake & reverting a-la carte purchases is a surefire way to lose thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in transactions and a severe loss of customers.
also: it's shady as HELL for not making any announcement about this change bar a semi-hidden news post on your website. (unless this was a decision the poor marketing/CM person who was forced to put it somewhere made to try and avoid as much backlash that they would recieve on front lines as possible, i sympathise - that's smart as hell and godspeed to you!)
As I stated in another topic: I am officially not going to be purchasing anything DnD related until this change is reverted. I used this site for convenience, but I don't NEED it nor the books. I bought things to support DnD. No more if they are going to be anti-consumer like this.
At the time of this posting, most of the 5e Players at the gamestore I frequent and play at have canceled their DDB subscriptions, and the 6 Adventure's League Groups that were running have all canceled until ALC is brought back, and are all looking at more Consumer Friendly TTRPGs. The gamestore owner is already thinking about no longer selling D&D products or MtG, he makes more money off YuGiOh and the large selection of other TTRPG books out there. He is tired of the drama and bad business WotC/Hasbro keeps bringing, and has already refunded and cancelled most of the Vecna physical pre-orders he had at the store.
Hilariously enough, looks like prolly going to Pathfinder, as we can buy ALL the Pathfinder 1e books for less than $100 digitally, that is if the groups don't just decide to only use the 100% FREE OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED Database of info for Character Creation tools and info.
It is also sounding like even if they DO bring back ALC.. lot of these players just aren't coming back to D&D at all. Especially with this Eye of Vecna Early Access fiasco no top of the removing ALC.
All I have left is a singular D&D group that exclusively just uses ROLL20 which doesn't honestly require buying anying for D&D can just hand input/homebrew everything, and they are talking about quitting D&D and 5e as well.
So.. there is that. Way to go WotC/Hasbro you have killed your brand at one of the largest Gamestores in my county, which is a very big county, and honestly ******* sad as hell. Since it is in the county that WotC was created/established.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
This is kind of a weird distinction in digital though, as an "a la carte user" costs the exact same to host as a guest who buys absolutely nothing, and a user who buys entire books, as they're all accessing character sheets, reading the books they have access to, using the forums, creating homebrew etc. So if they only care about wales they'd need to ban guests.
If anything, "a la carte" users are paying more for what they have access to, because if you pay half the price of a book for individual items, you'll have a lot less than half the book unlocked.
It can't really be described as a loss leader because the cost of making a book is bound up in the physical book, converting it to a digital book is comparatively easy if you have access to all of the text. Users buying piecemeal should very quickly cover the cost of creating the digital content, let alone people buying the full thing, so in terms of the costs for digital content it's a lot lower.
If they axed the feature because it was costing them more money than it made, they could have published sales figures to prove that, or even just said so, but they haven't, so it's on them if we all assume the decision was pure greed, because it almost certainly is.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
What disgusting behaviour this is. Unadulterated greed at it's worst - They won't be getting any more from me or my group. As if it wasn't bad enough owning physical copies and then having to buy that same digital content. No more.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
It probably does work on something close to a power-law distribution. You have the long tail who buy little or nothing, the people who buy one book, the people who buy a couple of books and a master subscription, all the way up to the ones who buy everything. Piecemeal buying probably smoothed out the graph some, but the bulk of it is whole-book purchases.
While it doesn't have the unlimited spend possibility of the typical "free" game, it's not dissimilar. (Though I bet "three books and a master subscription" is a significant bump in the graph.)
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
maybe decision makers are assuming a lootbox or subscription model that's not yet visible to all involved and may or may not ever become reality. user assumptions aside, it's not clear that the left hand of the company knows what the right hand is doing. this is dungeon mastering by committee and they're rolling all the dice behind several screens.
the uncertainty is unattractive, to say the least.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
It probably does work on something close to a power-law distribution. You have the long tail who buy little or nothing, the people who buy one book, the people who buy a couple of books and a master subscription, all the way up to the ones who buy everything. Piecemeal buying probably smoothed out the graph some, but the bulk of it is whole-book purchases.
While it doesn't have the unlimited spend possibility of the typical "free" game, it's not dissimilar. (Though I bet "three books and a master subscription" is a significant bump in the graph.)
This is probably close to it. They have said something like 20% of the player base (DMs, usually) does the vast majority of the purchasing.
I would note that another plausible cause for all of this is just staffing; the glacial pace of updates to the site strongly suggest that the development staff is quite small.
Now, it's important to note that they re-architected the store. That's not something you do to kill off an old product you don't like -- if you really object to a given product, you just stop selling it. It's also not something you do casually, because no matter how you do it, it's going to annoy your customers. Mostly, the reason you do something like that is because the old system needs some sort of update, and it's easier to write a new store than update the old one. Note that staffing comes into play here: if you've laid off the staff who understand how the old system worked, making those necessary updates on the old software may simply not be feasible. Another common trigger is that a key component is end-of-life and needs to be replaced.
Once you've decided that you're going to replace a component like that, you look at the features of the old store, prioritize them (based on how much you value them and how much work they are to implement), and implement as many of them as you can manage given your deadlines and available staff (if the deadline is sufficiently far in the future you may look at hiring new staff, that's generally not feasible in the near term). A la carte purchasing didn't make the cutoff. It's almost certainly not the only thing that didn't, it's just the one that the most people got upset about.
Now, does this mean that Wizards can be pressured into restoring the feature? In the short term, no: building and debugging a system like that takes time. On a longer time frame, maybe.
There's really no need for you to try and rationalise this to somehow being anything else; post-OGL they have no right to that kind of generosity. And in this case specifically there's one simple reason…
Now, it's important to note that they re-architected the store.
…and that reason is that there was absolutely zero need to re-architect the store. If their team is so tiny and over-worked, then re-architecting the storefront was a completely unnecessary project that has only wasted their limited staff time; it hasn't made any improvements to the marketplace, in fact it's made it universally worse.
Even if they had a legitimate reason to do it, and had another legitimate reason why they had to rush it out without fully re-implementing the full capabilities of the previous storefront, then that still doesn't excuse the fact that they haven't explained the loss of piecemeal, or mentioned plans to bring it back.
Because to be super generous in handing out benefit of the doubt, we would need to assume that piecemeal purchasing is only temporarily unavailable while they release this initial version of the new storefront, and that they'll bring the option back later; but if that's the case then why haven't they taken the two seconds it would have required to say so?
Their silence on the issue has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a shit about their customers, and had hoped to squeeze this out without anyone noticing. They have not earned our generosity or trust, and they are actively taking advantage of it right now by continuing to try to ignore us completely.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Now, it's important to note that they re-architected the store.
…and that reason is that there was absolutely zero reason to re-architect the store.
If there was zero reason to re-architect the store... they wouldn't have done it. It costs resources that they could instead use on something they could sell. It certainly wasn't needed to get rid of individual purchasing, removing them from the existing store would almost certainly have been completely trivial.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Loosing single purchases is really stupid, was gonna buy the death cleric but its gone and im not spending money on 30$ for it. Oh well friend has the dms guide irl will just do it the old fashion way.
I have a feeling they aren't going to back this up soon, especially since it has been radio silence from someone other than you in this forum. We know they will only consider changing it back once it hits their bottom line.
At the time I write this there are 24 pages on just this discussion alone, and the same conversation is happening on other parts of the forum as well as other online circles. It is near fully unanimous in the negative view of WotC and DDB for this change. Yet they've said nothing in the past 2 weeks, not even acknowledge they've heard us.
If WoTC / Hasbro refuse to back pedal on the marketplace change, then what they should certainly do is make sure all future purchases of physical books, whether that be at a FLGS, Amazon, or other third party, they include a redemption code for the digital content bundle. I only buy alt covers, which can only be done at a FLGS. I am not given the liberty of the option to tack on the digital content for $10 more and that certainly does not encourage me to buy a bundle direct from DDB. Have us provide a proof of purchase for redemption code for those who've bought books after the change. And all future books be shipped in some wrapping so that a single use coupon code can be included inside to get the digital content. College textbooks do that as an option, and honestly I'd be fine with that. What I'm not okay with is dropping $60 on a physical book and then another $30-40 to use just one subclass or magic item.
But until there is some sort of change, instead of getting periodic $5-$10 purchases from the vast majority of us, they'll get none. Thousands of people spending $5 adds to more than a few hundred spending $30. Add in the loss of subscriptions and they'll be in the red fast. We aren't suggesting changes, we're promising boycott.
I tried to look up the numbers but it looks like they sell about a million books at the big box stores alone a year.
If they only make 10 bucks a book thats about 10 million a year in book sales.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here. Maybe half as much in total counting memberships and sales.
They know the numbers though and have a plan to make more money.
That's not how the piecemeal worked. You'd only pay up to the total cost of the book. When you bought enough of the individual species that section became fully paid for and the rest was included. If you bought enough to hit the $29 (or however much the full digital source cost) that was it and you got the rest. If the book ever went on sale, it would be the discounted price minus what you already spent. It never went above the original cost.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
I'm much less concerned with whether ala carte was a major profit center. it was a digital tool with some level of positive return on investment. I'm more concerned with them removing useful functionality without warning.
actually, it's worse if it wasn't very profitable. if direct profitability is the motivator, what's next? character portrait image hosting? "legacy" dice? the forever-beta encounter tracker?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Loss leaders used to be a market thing, now its make it so anti consumer people just leave, anyone else notice this?
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
c+p my message from the discord server:
d&d beyond decision-makers: bring back a-la carte. please. literally every single piece of feedback i have seen about the removal of this has been negative.
your community, your customers, are crying out for this to return; as are our d&d beyond using friends who aren't commenting on the forums or in the discord server.
since all higher-up decision makers seem to care about are profits and - let's be honest - have absolutely no idea nor care about your community base and their opinions (spoken from my own career experience working for an extremely similar business model), let me put it this way from a corporate employee standpoint:
not acknowledging this mistake & reverting a-la carte purchases is a surefire way to lose thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in transactions and a severe loss of customers.
also: it's shady as HELL for not making any announcement about this change bar a semi-hidden news post on your website. (unless this was a decision the poor marketing/CM person who was forced to put it somewhere made to try and avoid as much backlash that they would recieve on front lines as possible, i sympathise - that's smart as hell and godspeed to you!)
As I stated in another topic: I am officially not going to be purchasing anything DnD related until this change is reverted. I used this site for convenience, but I don't NEED it nor the books. I bought things to support DnD. No more if they are going to be anti-consumer like this.
At the time of this posting, most of the 5e Players at the gamestore I frequent and play at have canceled their DDB subscriptions, and the 6 Adventure's League Groups that were running have all canceled until ALC is brought back, and are all looking at more Consumer Friendly TTRPGs. The gamestore owner is already thinking about no longer selling D&D products or MtG, he makes more money off YuGiOh and the large selection of other TTRPG books out there. He is tired of the drama and bad business WotC/Hasbro keeps bringing, and has already refunded and cancelled most of the Vecna physical pre-orders he had at the store.
Hilariously enough, looks like prolly going to Pathfinder, as we can buy ALL the Pathfinder 1e books for less than $100 digitally, that is if the groups don't just decide to only use the 100% FREE OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED Database of info for Character Creation tools and info.
It is also sounding like even if they DO bring back ALC.. lot of these players just aren't coming back to D&D at all. Especially with this Eye of Vecna Early Access fiasco no top of the removing ALC.
All I have left is a singular D&D group that exclusively just uses ROLL20 which doesn't honestly require buying anying for D&D can just hand input/homebrew everything, and they are talking about quitting D&D and 5e as well.
So.. there is that. Way to go WotC/Hasbro you have killed your brand at one of the largest Gamestores in my county, which is a very big county, and honestly ******* sad as hell. Since it is in the county that WotC was created/established.
"Not getting cut into bloody littles slices, That's the key to a sound plan."
This is kind of a weird distinction in digital though, as an "a la carte user" costs the exact same to host as a guest who buys absolutely nothing, and a user who buys entire books, as they're all accessing character sheets, reading the books they have access to, using the forums, creating homebrew etc. So if they only care about wales they'd need to ban guests.
If anything, "a la carte" users are paying more for what they have access to, because if you pay half the price of a book for individual items, you'll have a lot less than half the book unlocked.
It can't really be described as a loss leader because the cost of making a book is bound up in the physical book, converting it to a digital book is comparatively easy if you have access to all of the text. Users buying piecemeal should very quickly cover the cost of creating the digital content, let alone people buying the full thing, so in terms of the costs for digital content it's a lot lower.
If they axed the feature because it was costing them more money than it made, they could have published sales figures to prove that, or even just said so, but they haven't, so it's on them if we all assume the decision was pure greed, because it almost certainly is.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
D&D Beyond a joke.
What disgusting behaviour this is. Unadulterated greed at it's worst - They won't be getting any more from me or my group. As if it wasn't bad enough owning physical copies and then having to buy that same digital content. No more.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
It probably does work on something close to a power-law distribution. You have the long tail who buy little or nothing, the people who buy one book, the people who buy a couple of books and a master subscription, all the way up to the ones who buy everything. Piecemeal buying probably smoothed out the graph some, but the bulk of it is whole-book purchases.
While it doesn't have the unlimited spend possibility of the typical "free" game, it's not dissimilar. (Though I bet "three books and a master subscription" is a significant bump in the graph.)
maybe decision makers are assuming a lootbox or subscription model that's not yet visible to all involved and may or may not ever become reality. user assumptions aside, it's not clear that the left hand of the company knows what the right hand is doing. this is dungeon mastering by committee and they're rolling all the dice behind several screens.
the uncertainty is unattractive, to say the least.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
This is probably close to it. They have said something like 20% of the player base (DMs, usually) does the vast majority of the purchasing.
Glad to see a YouTube video getting decent views on this: The INSANE D&D Leaks were TRUE (youtube.com)
I would note that another plausible cause for all of this is just staffing; the glacial pace of updates to the site strongly suggest that the development staff is quite small.
Now, it's important to note that they re-architected the store. That's not something you do to kill off an old product you don't like -- if you really object to a given product, you just stop selling it. It's also not something you do casually, because no matter how you do it, it's going to annoy your customers. Mostly, the reason you do something like that is because the old system needs some sort of update, and it's easier to write a new store than update the old one. Note that staffing comes into play here: if you've laid off the staff who understand how the old system worked, making those necessary updates on the old software may simply not be feasible. Another common trigger is that a key component is end-of-life and needs to be replaced.
Once you've decided that you're going to replace a component like that, you look at the features of the old store, prioritize them (based on how much you value them and how much work they are to implement), and implement as many of them as you can manage given your deadlines and available staff (if the deadline is sufficiently far in the future you may look at hiring new staff, that's generally not feasible in the near term). A la carte purchasing didn't make the cutoff. It's almost certainly not the only thing that didn't, it's just the one that the most people got upset about.
Now, does this mean that Wizards can be pressured into restoring the feature? In the short term, no: building and debugging a system like that takes time. On a longer time frame, maybe.
…or, it's because Hasbo are giant arseholes.
There's really no need for you to try and rationalise this to somehow being anything else; post-OGL they have no right to that kind of generosity. And in this case specifically there's one simple reason…
…and that reason is that there was absolutely zero need to re-architect the store. If their team is so tiny and over-worked, then re-architecting the storefront was a completely unnecessary project that has only wasted their limited staff time; it hasn't made any improvements to the marketplace, in fact it's made it universally worse.
Even if they had a legitimate reason to do it, and had another legitimate reason why they had to rush it out without fully re-implementing the full capabilities of the previous storefront, then that still doesn't excuse the fact that they haven't explained the loss of piecemeal, or mentioned plans to bring it back.
Because to be super generous in handing out benefit of the doubt, we would need to assume that piecemeal purchasing is only temporarily unavailable while they release this initial version of the new storefront, and that they'll bring the option back later; but if that's the case then why haven't they taken the two seconds it would have required to say so?
Their silence on the issue has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a shit about their customers, and had hoped to squeeze this out without anyone noticing. They have not earned our generosity or trust, and they are actively taking advantage of it right now by continuing to try to ignore us completely.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If there was zero reason to re-architect the store... they wouldn't have done it. It costs resources that they could instead use on something they could sell. It certainly wasn't needed to get rid of individual purchasing, removing them from the existing store would almost certainly have been completely trivial.