More from EllisLab on the Affiliate Program

Over the weekend Derek Jones shed some more light on the affiliate program suspension.

Here’s some of the key points mentioned in the post:

• There were 120 active participants in the program.

Affiliate programs serve a single purpose: to drive new business. They are not lotteries for existing customers to randomly reward other existing customers for purchases.

This was apparently what the current affiliate program was doing, which led to the statement:

Affiliate programs aren’t bad, ours was just flawed.

So, why is EllisLab now just closing this program?

We launched it, then didn’t give it much thought afterward.

They say “it’s been in automated operation for six years.”

What made them reexamine it now?

Something that has continually comes up is talk of a “new shopping experience”. And in light of this new experience, the affiliate program was examined and deemed unsuccessful in driving new business.

In light of this, we asked ourselves whether paying commissions under these conditions is a better choice than, say, hiring another developer (look for this very soon)?

It would seem, they’re about to hire another developer, which can only mean good things for ExpressionEngine and the other software EllisLab builds.

Derek concludes by saying that sites such as EE Insider and Devot:ee “don’t need financing from EllisLab to be viable” but rather

…a sustainable ecosystem is not built by a provider paying for participation. It’s our earnest hope that redirecting resources will improve the product, draw in new users, and ultimately increase the quality and quantity of the traffic these sites see, supporting whatever monetization or business model they have.

And there you have it, the logic behind the suspension of the affiliate program.