I write this blog on WordPress every day. I pay for hosting every year. Quite a lot of money, especially since I’ve switched advertising off.
From time to time WordPress reminds me that I’m paying too much for what I get.
Their latest game is to force me into a new software layout, designed to impose a way of thinking-about-writing that has been dreamt up by sweaty dumb moneydiots around a table. Nothing is allowed to be simple it seems for these varnished turds. The world of nonsense loves to use the word “block”. Blockchain, cockblock, roadblock. Now we are all expected to think that we are “making blocks” of text, instead of just writing stuff down.
This new blocktextchainword bollocks will end up being familiar and intuitive eventually no doubt even if I resent being forced to learn it. But they’ve removed the fecking word counter on my mobile version. Man it’s got me riled. If I want to know how close I am to my 500 word minimum I now have to copy the text and paste it into a piece of software that counts the words. I haven’t even got one installed on this phone.
Hatred of change. There’s the unhelpful thing involved in my annoyance. I have to police myself for it. Am I just sending angry tweets to WordPress because they changed something and I hate change?
OH MY GOD – no I’m not…
WordPress you unethical bunch of total wankers.
Right.
So.
Yeah so I can get a word count plugin.
The word count plugin cannot be installed unless I upgrade to WordPress business plan.
WordPress business plan will cost me $209 per year.
Oh God you filth.
Welcome to the beginning of operation “get out from under WordPress”. I’ve said it before but then I managed to roll back the software to the previous version thus delaying the inevitable. This time doing that no longer seems to be an option.
Escaping WordPress might take some time.
For now I can copy and paste to the delights of wordcounter.net until I can find a way to port all my previous posts plus subscribers and so forth to the website I’ve been studiously paying for and not using for the best part of a decade. Probably a good catalyst anyway. I’ve always thought I should make some use of that website.
As ever when I hit an obstacle like this I try to persuade myself that it’s nice to have to learn a new skill, and to an extent that’s still true. But I resent it. Do better, WordPress. I hope I’ve got this wrong, but I don’t think I do.
One person losing faith in a multimillion dollar company because they make a cynical and pointless adjustment to a service that he’s already sunk hundreds of dollars into…? They’re not going to run to keep me, hat in hand. They aren’t gonna break a sweat. Basically they aren’t gonna notice and if they do they aren’t gonna care. They’ve already had plenty of my money. That’s all they came for.
So no, on second thoughts I don’t think this late night hit of rage is just because they changed my toy. It’s easy to find yourself doing that though – kicking against something new just because it’s new. Often change is for the best. It keeps us alive and guessing – a stagnant pond is death. I can even roll with the extra work of copying and pasting into a wordcounter every few minutes. I’m pretty good at estimating 500 words by now too. Might be positive to stop numbers getting in the way of words when I’m writing. The majority of these are me wringing out my brain like a sponge. Numbers ask for a different part of that brain.
If my assessment of the thinking behind losing the wordcounter on mobile is right and I can’t get a counter without paying, it’s time to look into website at last. Brave New World.
Autumn leaves…
On the plus side it seems to have magically fixed the Facebook autoshare…
AlBarclay 