It seems like the current changes to the way everyone receives Flexible were brought about by a lack if income, though I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong on this.
The more I think about this, though, the weirder the whole thing gets;
With just Stripes and Wahn taking on commissions and both usually able to get through a decent number of hours in a month, I don't think I ever saw a month in which there weren't projects carried over. This was true even when we were only reaching half the monthly donation goal of $1000 and became obviously aggravated by the double down donation drive, of which there is still significant time outstanding. This is no attack on Stripes and Wahn, who both get through a critical amount of work each month to keep the game evolving, it's simple fact that two people with jobs would struggle to accomplish 66.6 ($1000 divided by the 15$ per hour commission rate) hours between them. A fully achieved goal means that each developer will need to do one hour every night, no exceptions. If you regularly meet your goal, any new projects are going to slip further and further away in an increasing cycle. It does not appear that there are any developers waiting in the wings to pick up the slack and I do not believe the current changes will motivate new people to join in and become coders, let alone 'staff' developers.
This mostly worked when everyone was largely on an equal footing equally and anyone could get in on the muddle, asides from the obviously missed donation expectations. Everyone was part of the same group, whether player, developer or donator. Now everyone is being clearly separated into the producers, the haves and the have-nots, there are expectations being placed on the consumer (and implied customer) of your product. Insofar as I can see, there has been no movement whatsoever to equal the scales on the side of the producer.
Is there any effort to get another developer and, if so, what will happen when funds are not available to keep everyone in commissions?
Will any of the money from generic subscription plans go towards a generic pot to motivate developers when there aren't specific projects going on or is this just for profit now?
Do these plans come with an implied amount of expansion every month regardless of the commissions that month?
Is there just the expectation that commissions will either never be abundant enough to cause the above-mentioned spiral of deadlines?
Or perhaps there's just no concern that, if successful, deadlines will push further and further out?
And let's just be clear, here:
I have no idea why you have to tie the single player game to the multi player client. I will not be participating in this, regardless of my commission status.