& Medium too, while I’m at it.
OK, I know that dealing with WordPress can be frustrating at times but WTF life is frustrating, amirite? The best thing about WordPress is that I can read dozens, nay hundreds of blogs for free & never have to pay a fee.
(I know there are other blogging platforms that allow you to read their content for free. But this is another issue).
Many former WordPress writers have migrated to Medium & many more of them have gone to Substack. Hey, go where you want, I’m not bitching about that. What I’m bitching about is this ~
I can’t read your writing anymore. Oh, I’ve subscribed to your blog. Well ~ I’ve subscribed to the “free” version of your blog. But I can’t afford to pay any money. I’m a disabled senior on a very restricted income & I just can‘t fucking afford to monetarily subscribe to all the blogs that used to be free here on WordPress.
Sometimes I can read part of the article but if I want to read the entire thing, I need to become a “paying” subscriber. Or I can’t make comments unless I’m a paying subscriber. Sometimes I’m told I’ve read my allotted amount of articles (Medium) for that month or whatever & I’m done. Fuck that noise. I got rid of my Medium subscription altogether, although I loved some of those writers.
Hey ~ I understand the need to make money. Life is becoming more expensive every day. But I can’t afford this method of blogging. Fuck this noise.
Remember when the internet was free? No paywalls anywhere? You could access anything at anytime? WOW ~ good times. Capitalism put an end to that right quick.
Like I said ~ fuck that noise. Maybe it’s a good thing. I have better things than to read a bunch of blogs. Go for a walk or something.
aunt polly's rants 
Reblogged this on silverapplequeen and commented:
Aunt Polly is bitching about having to subscribe to blogs that used to be free.
I’ve done some looking into both of those platforms as possible alternatives to move to if Blogspot ever starts censoring me. In the case of Substack, whether to charge money for reading or not is determined by the individual blogger. There are lots of Substack blogs I continue to read free of charge. So if some blogs are charging you to read them, the issue is the individual blogger, not the Substack platform.
In the case of Medium it does seem to be the platform. It does limit how many posts you can read without having an account, and the individual blogger has no power to change this. I’ve given up reading anything on Medium because that feature is so annoying, and if I see something I like, I can’t include it in the Sunday link round-up (I never include anything that’s paywalled or requires a login, since such links would just be frustrating and useless to the majority of readers).
The big drawback of Substack, to a blogger, is that it doesn’t seem to allow standard comment moderation. But that’s such a popular feature that I assume they’ll eventually introduce it.
I’m glad that platforms are trying out ways to enable bloggers to make a little money other than clogging up their blogs with ads, but a writer needs to realize that he’s going to lose a lot of readers if he makes them pay. For most bloggers, the amount of money they’d make is so small that they should realize it’s not worth it.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Like I wrote, I understand wanting to make money. I always want more money! That’s been the motivating force of my life … well, love & sex & rocknroll LOL
I was just wicked frustrated this morning (obviously)
A+, Aunt Polly! Those writers are trying to sell you something. Full stop. There is that lovely disguise 🥸 of not mentioning anything relating money… from behind a paywall. A writer writes because they MUST write. When a writer wants to get paid before we get the product, it better be a book.
Thanks for the good grade!
I agree with you 1000%!!! I follow a number of writers on Substack, subscribe to the paid version of two, but not the rest, but it is frustrating as hell to get 2/3 through an article just to be told to “upgrade to paid to read the rest”!!! I am thinking about posting on Substack, but it will be a free account, and it won’t replace my WordPress account, only supplement it, as my readership is diminishing here. But I will NEVER monetize my blog, no matter what! Like you, I cannot afford to pay for every opinion I want to read!
I know, it’s really infuriating!
Sometimes with that ‘limit of free reads per month’ thing, clearing your cookies can reset the number back to zero, sometimes. 🙂
The trouble with that ~ unless you’re really into it ~ is it clears all of your cookies, which these days tends to interfere with everything from online banking to surfing the web …
I’ll try that, thanks.
[…] doesn’t much care for paywalls on some of her her favorite blogs. […]
When the internet was free it was fun, full of dancing hamsters and sparkly writing.
YES
I posted some of my stuff to substack … for a couple of weeks.
I don’t do this for money, and there’s nothing there compared to what I can do and have done with WordPress going on seventeen years. It ain’t broke, fix it.
I’ve actually, shall we say ‘left behind’ a few of my favorite reads ‘ore their demands for money.