Seems you can no longer log into your account to download the latest version if you do not accept all the cookies - which is plainly illegal in Europe …
see also Xojo.com not accessible - #6 by MarkusR - Site Feedback - Xojo Programming Forum … interestingly nobody there seems to complain about it … which tells you a lot about the Xojo users left …
… and the number of cookies has gone up from 9 to 14 too …
They just accept it
Because what else are you going to do ?
Do you need to accept the same set of cookies on here ?
I wonder if its Discourse causing it ?
It’s xojo.com, not the forum.
AH my mistake
The fun bit is that many will try, deny cookies, and then are no longer able to get in as that setting is saved by the browser. And most won’t bother with finding and deleting the cookie (if they even think about cookie problems).
If Xojo is an expert at ONE thing, then surely it is in shooting yourself in the foot … 
Having to sign in to download a FREE trial is one way to turn potential customers away also. Everything to do with the initial download, install and run should be non-invasive and easy.
I wonder how many customers they lose by requiring an account to download a FREE trial.
I do wonder WHEN they will go down the route of Filemaker and LiveCode …
There is a difference. Both, Livecode and also Filemaker had a more robust userbase and a more robust functionality. Xojo does not have both. And which customers shall pay then more? The reality behind is: nobody will buy anymore. Simply. Learning other technologies is simple. When and if you have to pay 1200 and more per year take your 5 years costs (6000,-) and calculate: training every day with video tutorials for C#, Java or C++. What you get for it:
The entire point is: there are anyhow enough reasons to change to something else. The risk is: when and if Xojo runs into a bankruptcy it may be not that comfortable for the Xojo users cause of the need of a license token for their IDE. Latest when and if a new computer is needed it will become interesting. And I don’t believe that the inc. will come up as open Source. They will especially then milk their Customers for the use of license Servers.
You can ride a dead horse but this ride will be not really movng you to another place. It will not become better. It looks just now not like an innovative new start of them but like a try to stay on market with an old technology. The most programmers are not in the need of the good old basic. Okay, there is still a visual basic community. But nobody knows what they are doing with it in real. And not all of this people wil move to Xojo. What I found on forum platforms abut is that they are not moving anywhere. Most of them are older programmers. There is not that big potential for another language. Many of them are using other languages too but having old applications they have to maintain but don’t want to rewrite.
Looking on this I believe that the way of FileMaker and LiveCode is not a way Xojo can go with commercial success. The erosion of their userbase is a problem at all. And yes, it is true: it is simple to calculate that you only have to find one for 10000$ but 100 for 100 Dollars. But following to this I can’t believe that somebody pays an annual fee like 6k for a Xojo workplace. That is one of the problems behind.
For every business model you’ll need to find people paying.
… that Xojo WILL go there when the income and user numbers have shrunk to the point where they think they make more by concentrating on those they have over a barrel …
Is it smart? No.
But then neither Filemaker nor LiveCode nor Xojo so far have been known for making smart decisions, have they? I’d love to be wrong, but when your previous bad decisions leave you with just one admittedly even worse decision then where do you expect them to go? Suddenly make good decisions?
On a completely unrelated matter: do you believe in Santa?
The entire Point is: FileMaker and LiveCode had the userbase to pay this. Xojo has not. Claris and Filemaker had a userbase which was able to pay. And it is not so that Xojo could stay alive when and if the most users would go. I appreciate that you believe that there is enough substance. But to pay their bills they may need a bit more money then they would earn from a few still paying users.
The next point is: you need money. They also. And they have less then they need to fulfill the needs of their customers. That wasn’t the case at FileMaker nor at LiveCode. Both had enough money to do that. And there is another point. Both having a low / no Code application. That is not the case looking on Xojo. Even a simple Database Application is a Drama written in 5 acts: Development of the GUI, connecting to the Database, programming of the Database Logic, programming of the application logic and after all of that: release. The entire problem is: it is a programming language with a framework set behind and not an application System made for noCode.
There is no chance to write a Xojo application with only setting up a userinterface. It needs more. Even hello world needs coding. So what? How can it be that Xojo would follow Filemaker. All needed parameters are not there. In my eyes they can not do like the others done it.
I am so sick of every website requiring a login to do anything. Also sick of every website prompting me to join their mailing list every time I visit.
Yeah this one surprised me when they made the change ages ago. In my opinion, they should be removing barriers to entry and allow the product to sell itself. Getting people in the door is the hardest part.
I hate to put words into Geoff’s mouth, so forgive me if I get this wrong, but when I spoke to him about it, the logic was something along the lines of making people put in some sort of effort to weed out those who are not serious.
If anything wants a sign in just to download, I look elsewhere because I know their goal is to spam me with marketing messages.
Some websites are valuable, but drowned in all that noise.
At this point I would think the message should be “The more the merrier” and removing such silly barriers to entry would be a good thing for them given the number of people they seem to have pushed away over the past few years
As that isn’t really logical I have to wonder if that really is the logic behind the decision though. Could the financial situation have become so dire that they are looking at their download bill and try to trim it?
Obviously delutional. Totally clueless about his place on the market.
Set your browser to delete all cookies when you quit the browser
That also deletes the Cookies I want to keep. Better to just delete the cookies from xojo.com after I’m done …
I’d believe Geoff said that, I once read an article he wrote or recommend about Visual Basic’s mistake was listening to customers and that’s why Xojo is still here… I just remember reading it and thinking, this is so wrong.
That’s a standard marketing thing, I read about it when doing my marketing research. I think it works if you’re like Nike, Apple or any other well known brand, where customers trust you to start with.
I absolutely agree, but I don’t think Geoff sees it that way. I think he thinks he’s filtering out time wasters.
Two decades after the last version of Clasic VB and it has orders of magnitude more active users than xojo 