WordPress.com is now officially a splog network, and if you haven't done so already, it's time to quit.
Welcome to Popzazzle. I'm still not sure it's the right name, but I like it more today than I did yesterday. And I liked it more yesterday than the day before that, so… Popzazzle it is.
Popzazzle will, for now at least, serve as the sequel to Twirpz, which has, for the past six or so years, been a well-visited and often groundbreaking blog exploring the social web.
WordPress.com has evolved from a serious writer's tool with a bustling community, into a sploggy wasteland which has been re-targeted towards business users.
WHY THE MOVE?
The main Twirpz blog was, and at present still is, hosted on the WordPress.com platform. But in the years since I opened that blog, WordPress.com has evolved from a serious writer's tool with a bustling community, into a sploggy wasteland which has been re-targeted towards business users. So forward from today, I'll be posting anything that would have gone onto WordPress.com, here on Blogger instead.
Before I'm perceived as over-dramatising things, I should confess that I do have other blogs here on Google's Blogger (.blogspot) platform, and have had for many years. So it's not like I've been a lifelong WordPress superfan. But in the past I did feel WP was right for certain content types. What's gone wrong?
WordPress.com has always used a pseudo-crippleware strategy to sell paid upgrades. In other words, the platform rations the features available to users, and even seeks to subtly annoy or frustrate those users, until they buy paid upgrades. Blogger - the platform you're on now - lets users do more or less as much as their technical knowledge permits, without charge.
In the past, it was worth enduring WP.com's limitations and mild frustrations, because the platform had a sense of community, and it could be used for free as a basic blogging tool without too much intrusion from ads. I don't mind one ad appearing beneath a blog article, or even an additional one in the sidebar - which was where WordPress was a few years ago.
But advertising on free WP.com blogs is beyond excessive today. I've counted up to sixteen (yes, sixteen) adverts on some of my single WP.com pages. That included the repetitive display, between each paragraph, of extremely low-integrity banners. WP now also places ads very insensitively, covering your blog header, for example. There's a point at which a blog becomes a splog, and WordPress.com has crossed that line, regardless of how good your content.
SO WHY NOT JUST BUY A WORDPRESS.COM NO-ADS UPGRADE?
Firstly, there's an ethical problem with writers and other creatives being charged fees to provide a non-paying audience with value. And it's not just the audience that gains at the content-creator's financial expense. The platform to whom the creatives are handing their money gains status and visibility too. In pay-to-post systems, the provider loses, and everyone else gains. That is not an ethically sound system.
Fortunately, the pendulum appears to be swinging, and newer platforms are more commonly giving publishers the tools they need to monetise their work, then taking a cut. The platform still earns, but does so in a much more ethical way, which motivates writers to produce better and better work. But the rise of these newer options has decimated the community on WordPress.com, as good bloggers have left for sites that better respect and motivate them. That's the second issue.
The tactics WordPress.com have used, on blogs without upgrades, reveal the painful reality of how little respect they now have for bloggers.
Thirdly, almost all recent developments on WordPress.com have been focused on the small business market. As the serious blogging community heads for pastures new, WordPress.com pitches itself at commercial novices who want to create a self-marketing portal. And so heavy has WP's shift towards commerce been, that there's now virtually nothing among the modern theme selection or posting tools to support real writers. Buying upgrades might be a consideration for some, IF the platform offers compatible features. But it's totally off the table when all the dev work is aimed at business drones, and writers have to make do with either outdated or unsuitable architecture.
And fourthly, the tactics WordPress have used, on blogs without upgrades, reveal the painful reality of how little they respect bloggers. If you respect a writer, you don't spam sixteen get-rich-quick ads into every centimetre of relief on their pages. Turning a blog into a splog is not respecting writers. It's not only a royal mess - it also disables writers' chances of sustaining regular visitors. And if WP cares that little about what people contribute on a standard free plan, why would its attitude change when they're paying? Respect is a constant. You can't buy it. If someone doesn't have it, they don't have it.
So the current problems with a writer buying WordPress.com upgrades are:
- Ethics.
- Diminishing blogging community on the platform.
- Increasingly unsuitable architecture and theme designs.
- WordPress.com has no respect for writers.
WHY NOT MOVE TO MEDIUM.COM?
I've considered using Medium.com in the past, and it has at least made an attempt to offer writers a chance to be rewarded rather than milked. Indeed, many of the bloggers who were once part of the enthusiastic WordPress community have moved to Medium. But it simply isn't in the same league as Blogger when it comes to flexibility. If I want to make an on-page JavaScript app to help visitors perform various tasks, I can't do so on Medium. If I want my pages to have a special menu… can't do that on Medium either. Medium wasn't made to adapt to an individual's needs. And most critically of all, Medium wants to use my posts to promote itself, and other people's work. I decide what's promoted on Blogger.
So I'm here for the moment. Might move again if a really compatible commission-based platform comes along, but for now, as I say, welcome to Popzazzle.