Since the start of this blog, we have used WordPress as a publishing platform. Recently, however, WordPress appears to be working to drive off bloggers by imposing insular charges for every little thing. Indeed, they routinely charge you more if you are one of their more successful blogs beyond the annual fee for the blog (which is quite reasonable). Thus, they will now put advertising on your blog without your consent unless you pay them not to. Once again, if you are a successful blog, they zero in on your blog for such placement. Now, with no warning, WordPress has changed the basic tool for embedding videos by requiring bloggers to pay $60 a year for a video feature.
They could not make it more difficult for bloggers to avoid paying them the added money. They offer ambiguous instructions on getting a tool that I am still trying to find. The result is that we have been cut off from posting video content for the moment until we figure out either the new way of posting or buy the premium service.
In the meantime, WordPress has yet to fix basic problems on the system like the sudden failure of the “incoming links.” WordPress has simply said for months that “the API that powered the incoming links through Google Blog Search is no longer working.”
It is unbelievably frustrating to feel that WordPress is constantly trying to find ways to clip its users. It may be time to look for an alternative. It is not the added marginal costs each year but the feeling of a bait-and-switch with WordPress acting like a car dealer revealing undisclosed hidden costs for rust-proofing and undercoating. This is not a lot of money but it is a growing complaint among bloggers about the creeping added costs, even on blogs like this one that pay an annual fee and other collateral fees.
I went ahead and paid WordPress not to put advertising on the blog. Now, it is demanding more money to post videos when using the “add video” option.
Perhaps other blogs can share their own experiences.
ORO – promise? Great! you won’t be missed.
Tim – it might be that JT has other things he wants to spend his time on. You know like blogging, law & teaching instead of futzing with hosting services. The larger point is why would they want to drive away their more popular attractions?
Anon,
Yup. I haven’t put much effort into maintaining it.How-ever since I never really had that many people paying attention to it in the first place, I don’t feel like it’s a great loss.
“Seems to me a bigger bang for your buck and a greater aid to humanity would not be bitching, crying, whining about WordPress, but would be to ensure that lawyer rates come down to rates that all people can afford, not just the rich and the corporate.”
Anon,
No doubt legal rates should come down so that average people can afford legal representation. That being said how is Professor Turley himself able to “ensure” it? Beyond that I really think a response like:
“In other words Professor Turley, I hold the highest respect and admiration for you, but you should stop your fucking bitching about this, and solve a real world problem.”
With all due respect I think you woke up with a bug up your ass this morning.
Hey Gyges, your blog sucks.
Alternately, you could be helpful in a way that doesn’t make you come across like a jerk.
Compare:
“This is why I rent my own host for $12 a month, on which I run my various websites.
If you do want a service that does much of the setup for you, though, http://www.drupalgardens.com/ is worth a look. ”
with
“BZZZT! WRONG!”
Whose Mama do you think is prouder?
I mean I get that when someone else is wrong on the internet it makes YOU automatically that much smarter and cooler than you were before, but do you have to rub it in?
BZZZT! WRONG!
Your problem is NOT with WordPress, Turley. Your problem is with WordPress.com. You host your WordPress-enabled blog on WordPress.com, right? For free, right? You run a site like yours on a free service like WordPress.com, and then bitch when they charge you for video content? Or place ads on your blog to recoup bandwidth expenses?
If it really bothers you so much, then why don’t you get a simple hosting package somewhere ($15/month for a really good one) and have someone install WordPress on the server for you? It will run the same way, but you will not be beholden to WordPress.com’s hosting demands.
louisproyect, are you telling us that our fearless blog leader, Professor and attorney supreme …. didn’t read the fine print? I want no blasphemin’ here ya’ll. Really we are all a little fallible so … just teasing folks.
Car dealer ups n extras? Love that Jerry Lundergaard in the movie Fargo, “Well, we’ve never done this before. But seeing as it’s special circumstances and all, he says I can knock a hundred dollars off that Trucoat.” (thanks to IMDB for the memorable quote).
Eastern seaboarders, please don’t throw caution to THIS wind a comin’. Batten down the hatches and retreat inland a bit more. Maybe a visit to the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA, although I’m not sure if the site is officially complete.
Anon,
“you should stop your fucking bitching about this, and solve a real world problem.”
There’s a great quote about a plank and a splinter in various ocular cavities.
Nothing’s better than somebody complaining about somebody complaining. Before you say “well you’re complaining too.” I’m not, I’m making fun of you.
WordPress seems to be sitting in the same seat as most lawyers that state their $300 is merely market price and not a result of either A) Bar/licensing monopoly or B) having clients whose real world situation puts them over a barrel and forces/requires them to get a lawyer whether they want one or not.
Seems to me a bigger bang for your buck and a greater aid to humanity would not be bitching, crying, whining about WordPress, but would be to ensure that lawyer rates come down to rates that all people can afford, not just the rich and the corporate.
If I cannot walk away and decide not to buy, then the market is not free. If I am being sued, or if I have been injured, or if I am arrested, then I absolutely must have a lawyer and hence the market is not free.
One very easy step for reform would be to change the practice in which even that very first hour interview between prospective client and lawyer is charged. I can only afford one or two so called interviews, and so the very act of finding a qualified lawyer prices lawyers out of the range of most citizens.
In other words Professor Turley, I hold the highest respect and admiration for you, but you should stop your fucking bitching about this, and solve a real world problem.
Why don’t all you left-wing, un-American commies quit your bitching. Your petty, whiny complaints strike at the very core principle of the most glorious, wealth creating economic system in the history of mankind — free market.capitalism. It is all about the maximization of profit.. It’s the neo-American dream. Everyone can become another J.R. Ewing – just ask Rick Perry.
Why should anything be free? Everyone is free — nay, obligated — to grab all they can while they can,by use of the free market. The use free market’s price mechanism by all suppliers will result in the best allocation of resources to meet consumer demands, and the competition for consumers will force suppliers to seek appropriate economies of scale to prevent waste of resources.No one is in favor of waste, are you?
Of course, sometimes it requires millions if not billions in capital investment to achieve the economies of scale necessary to obtain maximazation of profits — but there’s no need for fear, corporations are here. And the equity owners and corporate executives are entitiled to whatever return or compensation the market can bear for achieving such great economies of scale and thus saving such great quantities of resources, aren’t they? Especially the equity owner — just look at rick Perry, became a millionaire as a career political office holder. Amen, brother!
So what’s you beef? Why shouldn’t WordPress put the squeeze on (both legally and morally) and why shouldn’t the costs be passed on to the consumer?
If nothing else, it ensures that you would never see another post from me.
I’ve noticed that through the years wordpress has become more and more problematic, even to receive followup comments. I hope that those of us, more internet savvy then I can help you find a free alternative. This is exactly a squeeze em dry situation and is intolerable.
Jonathan, a friend just sent me a link to this article. I use and love WordPress. Unfortunately, they don’t make it clear enough but that $60 is only for a premium feature. You can still paste links to videos in your posts. It has even been simplified. Now you can simply copy and paste a Youtube or Vimeo (others that are part of the free service are listed) directly into your article. Here’s one I just posted myself–all for free:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/release-of-prisoners-at-abu-salim/
Back in the day it was all free. MSN and GeoCities, etc., gave one unlimited free web pages and one could list by “key words” on all the search engines without cost. It was the wild-west and everything was free.
A multi-billions dollar industry has now taken over and all those greedy little munchkins have to be paid. As far as I can see, WordPress became part of Automattic Inc. but both were founded by the same group of people. Who knows if they’re planning to hang on to the company or building the revenue in preparation to sell it or have already sold it. Whatever the case, greed is now in the driver’s seat and once that happens, it’s time to find a new blogging provider.
Maybe you could apply to the WordPress Foundation for a grant and pay the WordPress fees with their own money … 😉
I started my website Women In Pain Awareness on ning when it was a free service. Then, without warning they changed to a charging site. (Luckily we received a scholarship for a year – but had to close the site when the year was up because the least cost for a site with the numbers we had (only about 172) was $239.00, unaffordable, esp to a site where the majority of members were disabled and unable to work. I also felt baited and switched. (We are now at FB.) I started to blog at wordpress but found it hard to figure out (I am pretty computer unsavvy.) My blog, The Pained Life, 30 years, and counting, is at Blooger and so far I have had relatively few problems. I only write posts so I do not know if it has the other bells and whistles you use here.
There are getting to be fewer and fewer free or truly cheap services on the intertoobz. Sad, but those in charge are going to squeeze the last drop of blood from the turnip patch.
It sounds like they are using the Amazon model of jacking their most constant customers.
Well, we’ll follow you if you leave.
How about the FreeSpeechZone.Com or The FirstRightAmendmentRightProtected.Com….that would be FRAP…..I am sure a few of us would be happy to help set this up…..Then you sent the parameters of use….and being used…
This is why I rent my own host for $12 a month, on which I run my various websites.
If you do want a service that does much of the setup for you, though, http://www.drupalgardens.com/ is worth a look.
why don’t you just move to a more democratic platform, like Blooger?
Too bad you don’t know a good lawyer, you could probably sue them! 🙂