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If you read 80 Level often, you might have bought an add-on or two through our affiliate links, created after discussions with their creators. However, not everyone is that transparent, or at least some artists believe so.
Sanctus, the creator of the Procedural Material Library, noticed that one person, BlenderHub, "steals sales" by putting their referral link to Blender Market after paying Google.
"If you have as an affiliate: marocsofiane20@gmail.com, be aware that he's using [AdWords] with [his] affiliate link to basically steal sales. So even if someone searches for your product and clicks [his] link (that will be on top) you will lose the commission. Already stole 525 commissions from me alone," Sanctus said.
So if you simply google Blender Market, BlenderHub's referral will be right in the Sponsored link, which shows first, so they get hefty commissions from this.
Another artist, SMOUSE, supported Sanctus, saying it was "incredibly disappointing and damaging behavior."
"This can sour the trust us creators now have with our current and future affiliate relationships, and is financially impacting us creators! Some creators have had several hundred recent sales gone to BlenderHub without any direct marketing or affiliation, and at a significant commission cut too!"
Sanctus claims that "there's a lot more shady and suspicious things around this user," and they have "multiple satellite accounts, multiple Gumroad accounts with very similar existing addons" as well as a website "where he directly offers other creators free addons in exchange for your email."
Now, we can't be sure what tricky business is actually going on, but this scheme seems pretty unfair and should be investigated. Meanwhile, you can make your Blender Market interactions "safe" by not clicking Sponsored links or following only those that add-on creators share. Just pay attention to what comes after "ref=" if you don't wish to help affiliates.
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