I was looking through the layout marketplace while adding in a few new sorting features when I noticed that either most designs don't use the {CONTENTID} system or the layout is actually just a bunch of links to pictures or layout code. I know the layout system can be confusing and it's more complicated than any other site's but that's also because we have a lot of talented layout designers with complicated designs. Below are the three biggest reasons why the layout system exists and why I think it will pay off for you to learn it if you're making a marketplace layout.

1. Your layout is guaranteed to be messed up in the future

The only thing that is constant is change. 

- Heraclitus

The site layout and master stylesheets are guaranteed to change in the future and I can't predict how it will affect the vast array of layouts that people created. We've had many site designers in the past and we'll certainly have new designers in the future in order to stay in line with modern web design (these days, it's universal responsive design that works on both mobiles and desktops; in the future, holograms). It's completely possible that the new site designer will have a setting in their stylesheet that will have an adverse effect on your layout. The layout system was designed to mitigate the effect of any changes the site might experience over its lifetime.

Let's say you made this gorgeous layout and you have a story with 50 chapters in which you painstakingly place your shiny new layout into each and every one of them. Then you have a bunch of people that said "That's so awesome! Can I use your layout?". You say "sure!" so another 50 stories use your layout while you feel pretty good about yourself for giving something back to humanity. Then a new site design comes out six months later with a new AFF designer that likes line heights of 1.5 instead of 1.5em and every single page with your layout is now a hot mess. People with your layout will then go through denial (what the hell...?), anger (wtf!), bargaining (please change it back!), depression (when I say no), acceptance (I should've just used the layout system...) and everyone then has to make a change in every single one of their pages.

Here's an alternate scenario: you made your gorgeous layout in the layout marketplace using {CONTENTID} tags (unless you just have static content and that's cool too). You then activated that layout in your 50 chapters and everyone else who loved your design did the same thing. New site design comes out in six months and all the layouts are a mess. You make a quick change in the layout that you posted in the marketplace to fix the issue and every single page that has that layout activated will instantly be fixed. No fuss, no muss and no five stages of grief.

2. It reduces layout plagiarism

This one's a tougher sell so hear me out. Much research has been made on music and movie piracy and one theme they have in common is that most people don't actually want to steal; they just wish they could have an easier way to get at what they want. Many people scoffed at the idea of iTunes thinking "why would anyone want to buy the song when you can just download it for free?". Twenty five billion songs sold later, iTunes is now a significant revenue generator for Apple. We could make the same arguments about Netflix in that it's a lot easier to just legally watch a show on Netflix than to torrent it. Which shows are statistically the most pirated? The ones not on Netflix.

Where am I going with this? Most people don't actually want to steal your layout and mess around with HTML and CSS because it's hard. On the other hand, most people also like pretty things. Eventually, the most determined figure it out after banging their heads on their keyboard a few times and accidentally striking the right keys while others give up after finding out that web design is not their life's calling. The layout marketplace was designed to make it easy for people to use your layout while giving you the recognition you deserve as a designer. Would most people want to bother going into source to figure out how your stuff works and risk the scorn of other members of the community for stealing or would it be easier and safer for them to just activate your layout in their story? I'm willing to guess that most people would rather do it the easy way.

3. Update your layout once, it updates everywhere

This is actually just reason 1 said in a different way but it's worth saying again (a list looks better with three things in it).

The layout system was made to help designers weather any changes that may come about on the site or whenever they make new updates to their own design. Everyone is certainly free to implement their designs directly on their stories and that's cool too. Just know that the layout system is there for you when you need it and hopefully I've saved one or two of you some hours of grief sometime in the future.