If you’re not aware yet, Elegant Themes has completely put the kibosh on third party child theme markets. ET recently released the “Divi Design Initiative”, which is a brand new design department dedicated to creating world-class Divi layouts with original photos and graphics. And the best part of this all, these layouts are delivered on a weekly basis absolutely free ?! In addition, they are giving customers access to their library of stock photos.

Now I asked myself, “Why would any business purchase a Divi child theme package when Elegant Themes is giving them away?”. And the answer that makes most sense is not very many. Simple math deduces 52 child themes per year. Who the hell is going to compete with that. And having a reputation for delivering quality products, it’ll be very difficult to knock them off the top.
Now I know what you’re thinking, I’m hating right? Wrong! I think it’s absolutely brilliant and wondered why it took this long to execute.

So what does this mean for the future Divi Dezigns? Do we wave the white flag in defeat? You bet your ass we do. But that doesn’t mean we’ll fade away quietly and not develop another theme. It just means we shift our priorities and pursue other Divi avenues (like develop Divi third party plugins). And to ET’s credit, as their user base grows so will new opportunities and demands.

And one last note. For all my Divi Dezigns customers who purchased our “All Access Package”, they will receive our first plugin absolutely free. And trust me, this undisclosed plugin will prove useful and hopefully fulfill a need. So keep us on your radar as we do not accept defeat, we turn it inside out and wear it proudly on our heads.