One of the ways handset manufacturers differentiate themselves from the competition is by skinning the UI of their phones to look different. In some cases, such as Samsung, themes are also offered which allows for further customization, but unfortunately for Samsung owners it looks like free themes will be coming to an end, sort of.
In a notice that Samsung is sending to users of Samsung Themes, the company is notifying them that free themes will now be limited to 14-days of use. This means that even if a theme is made free by its creator, users only have 14 days to enjoy it, after which it revert back to the default Touchwiz theme.
Samsung offers themes in both free and paid versions, so it is unclear why they are now limiting free themes to 14-days. It has been speculated that maybe Samsung is trying to force users to purchase paid themes so that they can get a cut of those proceeds, but then again we’re not sure how many users pay for themes to begin with to determine if this might actually make financial sense.
That being said, Samsung isn’t the only company to offer themes to its mobile users, although some companies such as Sony have ultimately decided that there aren’t enough users to justify keeping it around.