EDIT: Shortly after posting this, I came across a list of blogging platforms in a post on Mastodon. Coincidence or serendipity? Or both? Coincendipity?
This isn’t a complaint about WordPress! WordPress is a rich, diverse tool that can sing, dance and probably rub its belly at the same time. I’ve been using it for this blog since 2005–around 19 years! Obviously, it’s been doing a decent job of letting me get my inane thoughts online, or I would have switched to something else by now1Or become a crazed hermit living in the mountains, eschewing all technology, perhaps.
So why am I tired of it?
It’s big, bulky, and jammed full of features, many of which I don’t use. Its company, Automattic, is increasingly pushing even standalone blogs like this one toward monetization, with plugins like Jetpack having more and more paid features under the premise that if you are using WordPress, you are intending to make money from it, otherwise why aren’t you just posting your cat pictures to Facebook for the price of free2Not counting the price of YOUR ETERNAL SOUL?
What I yearn for is something that is light, clean and simple to use, yet still allows me to do the bloggy things I like:
- Write down my inane thoughts
- Write lists, like this one
- Post photos and drawings
- Present these things in some kind of organized manner
I feel that WordPress has moved away from the simplicity of humble, handcrafted artisanal blogging. I want to get back there again. I want to touch (virtual) paper.
Where to go next
(I didn’t really need a subheading here, but you see them a lot on important blog think pieces, and I’m always keen to look fancy and smart.)
My choices are roughly as follows:
- Keep using WordPress and just shut up about it. It works, right?
- Actually switch to a WordPress alternative.
- Stop blogging altogether.
- Post my cat pictures on Facebook for free3I would also need to get a cat.
I’m actually unsure which option to pursue. The last few years I’ve been, in some ways, reconstructing many aspects of my life, and I don’t always know where these things will lead. I suppose this makes it exciting. Whee!
