I've disliked the forced register feature from the start, but in testing paypal today, it cemented my views

this feature really needs to be made optional - it adds little and is a big pain for many users.  why should someone have to register & go thru the password changes just to buy one image?  I know i'd go elsewhere immediately. 

and it makes the great networking options a horrible mess -- users are going to have to register & remember passwords for every one of the different sites they want to buy from -- how many are going to just give up and go to a 'real' microstock agency instead of dealing with this unprofessional looking maze they have to wade thru?

even worse, if you do jump thru hoops to get online, there's no indication of where to go to change the password to something reasonable   - how are new WP users going to know they have to go to 'dashboard' which doesnt even show as an option?

many users have no idea what WP is, and it just adds to the confusion of what should be a very simple transaction



finally, there's no real 'security' involved here -- you still need to have a real paypal acct in order to pay, so fraud is not a concern, AND you can still log in with one  email acct then use a different email for the paypal payment

You make sense. I am ok with something different.

Just coming in for my nightly visit to the forum...oh this break was needed!

Registration is a technicality. What it does:

1. Assigns files to people. Who's cart are we adding to? Of course I could do this with cookies...but it was convenient.
2. Assigns files to people. After registration, we have to ensure the person has a secure access to their files.
3. Some other stuff I can't remember right now.

And its a pain and a needless step between you and the sale...and why would anyone use the network when it adds an extra 3 or 4 steps per sale? Per site!

I'm with you. The problem is just getting a dependable system to function without a login. Also people don't want to sign up because they know you will spam them. Or you'll get hacked and they will spam them.

There are MANY reasons not to use login. I just happened to use it right now to make a working system.

I'm the kind of guy that likes to kill multiple problems at once - so if we make a cookie-dependent system we have to have the sites share the cookies (everyone loves it when you share your cookies) and suddenly you can see your cart among multiple sites.

When your ready to buy...its just a quick paypal per site. not a register, check-email, verify...paypal, download...

Too bad I'm on summer break! ...do we know any coders?

The cart system is actually simple enough for someone to just jump in and start having fun.

Maybe simpler solution:
Not shared, local cookie-cart only for one site. And every time, when buyer wants to pay, he will pay only for items in that local cart. And will see message "you can buy without registering, but your items will expire in ... hours .... we recommend to register, blah ..."

Maybe I could try to do something like this, but I wanna summer break too, so CODERS WANTED

If any of you want to do some homework I'll be happy to implement your findings in a while. I think a big focus for now (the next few months) should be earning your way up google and getting traffic. That way when I come back there will be plenty of demand on the cart

You are right about this, Leo. No summer break for me. I hope I'll have 1000+ images online by end of this summer. And I will continue working on look and functionality of my SY site. Let's see how deep I dare diving into coding  (The cart/cookie/paypal thing is definitely beyond my reach, though)