To piggy back off of some stuff I just tweeted, it appears an @code extension was just sold for $9k. Now I’m not opposed to devs getting paid, on the contrary, but this is concerning for me b/c when we’ve seen this before it has almost always led to spam.

We saw it in WordPress. We saw it in the Chrome Web Store. We’ve seen it to lesser degrees in iOS. We’ve seen it in Android. With mobile apps, there is a sales model built-in so sales/flips concern me less. Extensions/plugins, it’s a red flag.

As a community — and I know @code is a massive one — I really hope we can ensure that stuff listed on the official marketplace is secure and adheres to rules. And if we don’t already have rules against blatant spam, we need to bring them in now.

Because trust me, vultures and grifters and get rich quick hucksters will glom on and ruin a good thing any way they can. Hopefully that’s not what is happening here, but it should be a call to all of us to be wary and watchful to ensure that stuff doesn’t proliferate.