We receive a lot of questions on this forum from people who have "problems" with various extensions. The questions often contain the phrase "Does anyone have any experience with xxxx?" While most of those questions are best answered by the people who developed products that people sometimes have "problems" with, some of these questions can be anticipated if people provided feedback by using the review mechanism in the JED.
It doesn't take a lot of effort to write a review. It really doesn't take a lot of effort and there are rewards to both the developer and for potential customers who may be interested in using these things.
Developers spend a lot of time creating extensions and listing them on the JED. On average, a developer spends between one and two weeks writing the code, testing it, packaging it, and submitting it for listing. It's therefore somewhat unfortunate when people simply download the extension, use it, and never inform the developer of their experience.
Because, it seems, most people expect that their requirement will be met by installing an extension (and they expect their requirement will be satisfied without paying anything for it), extensions often are just downloaded for the "fun" of it—sometimes because they're free—but they're never reviewed. Because a lot of experimentation is involved in selecting the "right" extension for the task, if people were able to read other people's experiences, this helps everyone. It keeps developers on-their-toes and it saves other potential customers' time in selecting the best fit for their needs.
For a number of years I offered my own work for free—as a way of giving something back to the community that has helped me so much—but watching my work being siphoned off my webserver and never seeing any feedback from the people who downloaded those things, I've changed my mind. It's a most unsatisfying feeling from a developer's perspective, to see my work being used and not even receiving a "thank you" (or a complaint) once in a while.
So, do a favour for everyone. If you use an extension on the JED, use the review feature to tell everyone what you liked or disliked about it. Thanks.
. For years of site existing (5-10 downloads per day...). 