Will vBulletin 5 be what destroys vBulletin?

I hear a lot of people still associate vBulletin with quality despite the recent fiasco and the IB take over, but will vBulletin 5 be what puts a stop to that?

After all, going from vB 3 to vB 4 isn't much of a big deal. Your features still work, your mods might sometimes still work and the layout is basically vB 3.5. So for many people, the upgrade is fine because it's just 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

But vBulletin 5 is a whole new kettle of fish. It lacks major features like infractions and the CMS, its got an entirely different style, is buggy to the point it's mostly unusable without javascript... It's basically an alpha state piece of software.

So do you think when vB 5 gets released, people will be given a bit of a wake up call? And that it might drive whatever long term users are left away from vBulletin and Internet Brands?

 

If you think going from vB3 to vB4 "isn't much of a deal" then I question your credibility. vB4 from the 4.1.4 update onwards, it's already been destroyed. It has already lost me as a customer, then the customer service lost me even further.

vB4 isn't that case of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it," it's more of: "Let's break the whole thing."

vBulletin 5 beta didn't fix or ease me, either. So, going by this, I already know vB5 will destroy the whole brand.

I think the first update right after the vB5 gold release is important. Because that will make or break vBulletin going forward.

But we already know how bad vB5 can be if it required that many beta updates.

For a lot of people, I think vB5 beta already spelt the end of vBulletin.

 

Yeah I know, the beta already spelt the end, and for others vBulletin 4 did too (it's where I stopped using vBulletin).

But you have to admit, going from vB 3 to vB 4 is less of a trainwreck than going from either vB 3 or vB 4 to vB 5. Sites like Digitalpoint can and have used vBulletin 4. They physically can't use vBulletin 5 due to how badly it works under stress and missing features.

My theory is that any holdouts will be completely turned away by vB 5 and any semblance of popularity will vanish.

Because at present, despite it being terrible software, vB 4 does have a large fanbase.

 

I dunno about you, but going from vB3 to vB4 was a trainwreck. Maybe not as bad as going from vB3/4 to vB5, but still. It was. When I upgraded from vB3 to vB4, some of my hacks stopped working entirely, so I had to disable most of them or upgrade them. Not only that, bugs ensued to the point of not being able to do a particular thing. With the 4.1.4 update, it broke the entire site. It doesn't matter where you loaded the instance, it's broke.

On the other side, ya know, the backend - it killed any traffic I had left from MW2's "post-launch" phase. Ultimately, I lost a lot of traffic due to vB4/vBSEO.

 

Does Internet Brands own any competing websites that have benefited from your damage?

 

There are 37 vBulletin developers, 5 project managers, 13 quality assurance staff and 25 support staff according to this: https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showgroups.php (there is some overlap, but I'm too lazy to parse that out).

I'd guess it's a pretty safe bet that cost of doing business is higher year over year (more staff each year) and I'd guess that revenue is going down year over year for vBSI. At *some* point, just the cost of staff for vBSI is going to be higher than the revenue being brought in (maybe it's already at that point, who knows...)

You can of course raise the cost of the product to try and make up the increased cost and lost revenue (which they have done), but with the quality of the product deteriorating over time, you are going to have less and less people willing to pay the increased cost.

As some point someone higher up is going to be like, "Errr... we are spending millions of dollars on staff salaries, and this is what you have to show for it? No wonder sales is going down." It wouldn't surprise me in the least if vBSI was sold in the next year or two just to shed the bleed from the parent company.

It's actually quite sad what vBulletin (both as a product and a company) has become over the last few years...

 

Also, I was one of the first "big boards" to go live with vB4 (I think 4.0.2 when we had 12M posts). I've always thought vB4 was okay (didn't think it was amazing, but also didn't hate it).

*These* days, I feel like I lose about 50 IQ when coding stuff in vB... In the end it works, but the codebase is so old I really feel like I somehow get stupid just by looking at it's guts. Lol

As far as vB5, I wouldn't run it on my site even if I was given $10M and a bunch of naked Victoria's Secret models to do so.

 

If IB sells vBulletin I know a few developers who would turn it into what it was supposed to be, but they certainly wouldn't pay much for it in its current state.

 

I'd bet that quite a large group of webmasters will simply update their software to the latest version and then find themselves in severe trouble and in need of support. I think they will need those 25 support staff to deal with all the support tickets.
Those $199 premium customer support packages are going to sell like hot cakes. That seems like a very viable business model to me.

 

That's what i think too


Good Software=> doesn't need support stuff
Bad Software => needs MUCH support stuff


People who bought it, will need the support and they will pay the additional costs, so IB will get what whey want
Even they don't want to pay, they have to, because it's less money, then probably moving to another competitor^^

 

Yeah... I've already seen random people "upgrading" to vB5, and then after the fact realize they have no paid subscriptions or infractions any longer and are looking for ways to downgrade back to vB4.

If someone creates a vB5 -> vB4 (or even a competing platform), it's going to be big business, especially if there are no other options. "Sure, I have a script that will do it for you... It's $1,000." $1,000 or lose your site are the two options. Lol

 

Surely IPS will have a vb5 importer ready to welcome even more vbulletin webmasters.

 

Oh! I know what you're thinking.

So far, there is no gaming site that they own as far as I know, but I do have that feeling that they have at least one site that "competes" with CODForums or similar sites.

They'd better have some vB4 importers ready, because the first release of vB5 as gold will be make or break for them. If they don't do it right, they'll leave in droves.

 

There are more than a few such sites that do not list to be owned by inet. Often it takes quite a bit of digging.

 

Has anyone tried out the latest beta?
I see several users complaining about vb requiring mod_rewrite, is that going to be an issue for anyone here?

 

Is vbulletin broken? If it is then no VB5 won't destroy it because it's already done. If VB wasn't broken however then yes, they are destroying a good product by making it obsolete.

Either way, if people weren't asking for a complete re-design, and there wasn't an underlying critical flaw requiring a complete re-write, it was a bad business decision to make in my opinion.

I don't own a VB license, I don't like forum software that requires licensing as much as their free alternatives for obvious reasons. If you own a VB license, are you angry with the change?

 

So what's this about removal of the infraction system? I don't own vB, but infractions are the cause of a lot offended members and drama. It's a crutch for those that have poor policy and communication in place for proper moderation.

 

I take it you have not been part of managing a large forum before?

When you have hundreds of thousands of users making millions of posts, and 30 or 40 moderators all trying to do their job you need to keep records of things so other mods know what a particular user's history is and they can use that information appropriately.

On a much larger scale, imagine if a site like Facebook didn't keep backend records of problematic users and instead relied on "policy making and communication" between 10,000 Facebook employees trying to manage over a billion users.