Recently one of my friends asked me to recommend some good web designer because he is opening a new business. I told him about Themeforest so he can save $XXXX purchasing $60 theme. He opened TF website, spent 2 minutes browsing your themes and left your website. Do you know why? Because all themes on TF are created after one fashion, you know white background, big images, big headings, bootstrap… he just doesn’t have time to browse 100s themes. All low quality themes flood the market and unique hq themes are just somewhere on xx page with low sales because nobody will find them so in result authors stop produce quality items. I hope quality standards will come back because right now TF looks like an outlet.
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With respect to your friend I am not sure they would find anything esp interesting on any site in 2 minutes.
The problem they will have is that on a stock marketplace what constitutes a “high quality theme”? Surely this is different for every visitor depending on their experience and needs?
I actually agree there are some lower quality items around but that’s the same on every marketplace out there, and the simple fact is that the reason authors often produce similar elaborate items (again I would prefer more functional and practical ones ideally) is simply because this is what sells the most, which at the end of the day is the goal for any author.
5 years ago you could find interesting themes within 2 minutes very easily. Now you have to spend many hours.
The point is they are not selling, open xx page and check it out, average revenue from theme is $800-$1000 minus taxes and social security.
The same problem is with Photodune, I believe there are hq photos but I don’t want to spend 2-3 hours searching for good photo so I even don’t visit this website…
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Yeah, but how many themes were there five years ago? There’s 9000 currently, and if there were 100 back then, then something that would take you two minutes to find then… would stand to reason that it would take you three hours now. There was probably more than 100 back then, but you get the point… that’s just the growth of the site. I can’t really speak for the quality as I’n no Wordpress Wizard… but a massive increase in files without a massive increase in buyers will result in less earnings on average.
As for Photodune, that’s why they made the recent changes and got rid of a lot of the content.
There was 1600 wp themes + many html templates -> http://www.imagebam.com/image/7dc4e2543101953
Lower quality standards caused themes number explosion.
The market has grown of it’s own accord, as this happens there will inevitably be the better and the worse that join.
Yes there are some weaker files (again this is not something exclusive to here), and yes they will have formed part of the growth. However they are not solely responsible for the number of TF files getting bigger - there are just as many if not far more outstanding authors and items that have come through recently to join the marketplace.
I’d reiterate the question - how are you determining a “high quality” item? Surely this completely depends on the individual buyer? It can’t be based on code quality as most buyers don’t have the expertise, and certainly not in 2 minutes to investigate that?
Again I completely agree with you on preferring niche, functional and practical designs, but:
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Just because an item is more general and like others doesn’t make it any less high quality
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Authors will always make these big and versatile themes because these are what sells. I can barely think of any niche theme which sells anywhere close to the numbers of these multi purpose themes. They just don’t suit stock marketplaces.
@Com I’m totally agree with you :
I’ve done a nice work ( https://themeforest.net/item/salimo-creative-one-page-template/19128817 )
I have only 15-20 visitors per day, 1 purchase last 2 weeks 
I browse TF everyday, there is a lot of templates that looks the same, others with 0 sales from longtime approved,
I hope Envato will take this seriously … imagine TF in 2020 …
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Go to any good academy of fine arts and they will explain you how to recognise a good design. Trust me there are methods to do it and such rich company like Envato should know it. Compare site of the day on awwwards, somehow they can choose good websites, now take a look on the recent wp releases on TF, most themes is just weak and if I would open a company I won’t use them because they are just weak.
If it’s that bad, why did you recommended ThemeForest to your friend? Wasn’t very nice of you!
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There is still many good themes, but novice doesn’t know it because good themes are flooded by weak themes so new visitors think they are on the another paid wordpress.org/themes repository with weak themes.
ahahaahh 2 mnts i spend around 20hrs searching when i need to buy something, so many amazing items everywhere but i trust this website only bcz i have try buy few items from other webs and i start receiving scams emails from them only from envato markets i have never any scams or spams email 