Ben Cook suggests that people aren’t really interested in buying an individual theme so much as a highly configurable theme that acts more like a framework. A foundation that they can build upon, tweaking it to look how they want through a backend menu. Essentially, Thesis.

Sure it’s nice that companies like iThemes keep turning out new themes, but they’re fighting a losing battle.

People don’t want to purchase a different theme for every new site they create or every time they want to redesign their site. We want a framework that allows us to make a vast array of design changes as quickly and easily as possible.

Personally, I don’t believe this to be the case. I’m not really a Thesis fan myself, preferring to build my sites’ themes “the real way.” I think people still want to buy themes for the design, not just for a tweakable platform. That’s not to say people don’t want customization, far from it. WooThemes is a prime example. Their themes are primarily design-oriented, but they have plenty of customization options in the backend, albeit less than Thesis. I believe that the two points will converge in the future, bringing more and more customization options to more design-oriented themes.

Though I wonder if frameworks like Hybrid and Thematic will gain similar customization options to Thesis, bringing about a similar result. With customization options in the core of a theme framework like Thematic, and a large community of child theme makers, you have the convergence point I predict, no?