There are many more paid extensions than before. There are also many more Joomla extensions than before. Is having more paid extension options a bad thing?
It may depend on your situation. Can you create your site without spending more money than you want to? If you are setting up a personal or community site and have a limited budget the more advanced components will seem expensive. If you are a business or have money to spend then Joomla is an excellent, low cost option meeting all of your needs.
Perhaps another way to look at paid Joomla extensions: Has the paid extension business model allowed developers to create better extensions? Do the fuller feature better supported commercial extenstions make Joomla a better plaftorm? If the extensions were not built around a paid business model would the extension even exist today?
What do you think?
