Google, nobody asked for a new Blogger interface(tenfourfox.blogspot.com)
tenfourfox.blogspot.com
Google, nobody asked for a new Blogger interface
https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2020/08/google-nobody-asked-for-new-blogger.html
136 comments
This issue is why I’m skeptical of SaaS in general.
I look at software as a solution to a problem. When I have a problem and software solves it, I’m happy. The better the software, the more thoroughly it solves my problem without creating new problems for me (by being annoying or inefficient). The best software seems to hit a sweet spot with the right set of features targeted at solving a particular problem or small class of problems with minimal fuss.
Really good software becomes extremely difficult to improve on. But services can’t deal with just hitting the sweet spot and calling it a day. They need to grow, which means they need to evolve. The constant cash flow seems to burn a hole in the manager’s pocket. Eventually they cross a threshold and exit the sweet spot. Maybe they release a major version with an awful new UI. Like a TV series which has gone on too long, they jump the shark [1].
Perhaps this problem of SaaS may be analogous to network decay [2], though the latter is more gradual.
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark
[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay
I look at software as a solution to a problem. When I have a problem and software solves it, I’m happy. The better the software, the more thoroughly it solves my problem without creating new problems for me (by being annoying or inefficient). The best software seems to hit a sweet spot with the right set of features targeted at solving a particular problem or small class of problems with minimal fuss.
Really good software becomes extremely difficult to improve on. But services can’t deal with just hitting the sweet spot and calling it a day. They need to grow, which means they need to evolve. The constant cash flow seems to burn a hole in the manager’s pocket. Eventually they cross a threshold and exit the sweet spot. Maybe they release a major version with an awful new UI. Like a TV series which has gone on too long, they jump the shark [1].
Perhaps this problem of SaaS may be analogous to network decay [2], though the latter is more gradual.
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark
[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay
I frame my own disdain for SaaS along three axes:
1) Control - SaaS usually ingest my data and silo the results of my work, so that I don't own the output. This is often unacceptable. It also makes solving problems harder. With a local application, I can always hack around its deficiencies, or easily post-process its output. Can't do that with a webapp owned by someone else.
2) Reliability - While a SaaS will be more incentivized to support a paying subscriber, pay-once software with no auto-updates is more reliable once it solves your problem. That's because it's frozen in time. It doesn't get new features (which usually aren't needed if you have a working solution already), but it also doesn't break. In the context of your whole computing system, pinning to a version of a local piece of software lets you freeze one component of your system - which reduces complexity, and gives you one less thing to worry about.
(Longer term you may need to worry about the rest of your system becoming incompatible with the version-pinned program - but VMs essentially solve that these days.)
3) Relationships - Every SaaS I subscribe to is another relationship I enter with a third party that needs to be consciously tracked. I don't want that, it's anxiety-inducing and cognitively exhausting in the long run. What I want is to pay money in exchange for solving problems. I don't want new relationships on top of that. I tend to use the following example: when I go out to buy some bread in the morning, I exchange money for bread, and that's it. I don't enter into an ongoing relationship with the store, the bakery, the flour supplier or the wheat farmer. I like my software like my bread.
(To be more accurate: I actually do enter into a bunch of relationships when I buy food or trinkets in stores, but they're all governed and fully handled by various business and consumer protection laws - which means that I don't have to care about them. They only matter if something goes wrong with the goods I bought - and then all I need is to keep a proof of purchase and know who to e-mail about it, and I can even CC the government to force-handle things for me. Meanwhile, SaaS creates relationships you do have to track yourself.)
1) Control - SaaS usually ingest my data and silo the results of my work, so that I don't own the output. This is often unacceptable. It also makes solving problems harder. With a local application, I can always hack around its deficiencies, or easily post-process its output. Can't do that with a webapp owned by someone else.
2) Reliability - While a SaaS will be more incentivized to support a paying subscriber, pay-once software with no auto-updates is more reliable once it solves your problem. That's because it's frozen in time. It doesn't get new features (which usually aren't needed if you have a working solution already), but it also doesn't break. In the context of your whole computing system, pinning to a version of a local piece of software lets you freeze one component of your system - which reduces complexity, and gives you one less thing to worry about.
(Longer term you may need to worry about the rest of your system becoming incompatible with the version-pinned program - but VMs essentially solve that these days.)
3) Relationships - Every SaaS I subscribe to is another relationship I enter with a third party that needs to be consciously tracked. I don't want that, it's anxiety-inducing and cognitively exhausting in the long run. What I want is to pay money in exchange for solving problems. I don't want new relationships on top of that. I tend to use the following example: when I go out to buy some bread in the morning, I exchange money for bread, and that's it. I don't enter into an ongoing relationship with the store, the bakery, the flour supplier or the wheat farmer. I like my software like my bread.
(To be more accurate: I actually do enter into a bunch of relationships when I buy food or trinkets in stores, but they're all governed and fully handled by various business and consumer protection laws - which means that I don't have to care about them. They only matter if something goes wrong with the goods I bought - and then all I need is to keep a proof of purchase and know who to e-mail about it, and I can even CC the government to force-handle things for me. Meanwhile, SaaS creates relationships you do have to track yourself.)
While I share the frustration with the constant need to fiddle with things, I am not sure if going a non-SaaS route is gonna solve this problem completely. Pay-once software at least has a clearer incentive to deliver improvements, so that you want to pay for the newer versions. So the need to grow might be even stronger. Ultimately old versions will also go out of support.
Maybe OSS is the best bet, as long as the project is popular enough.
Maybe OSS is the best bet, as long as the project is popular enough.
SaaS software on the other hand is more popular since the revenue stream is forcefully consistent no matter if you're putting out 10 features in a quarter or 1, or if the customer even wants to pay for whatever new feature the SaaS is putting out. With pay-once software, your revenue stream will fluctuate more depending on if you're putting out features everyone wants or not, which is great as a consumer (assuming your needs match with other customers) but could lead to huge financial issues (read: layoffs) if someone makes the wrong decision and develops features for 2 quarters in a row that no existing customer upgrades for.
"This issue is why I’m skeptical of SaaS in general"
SaaS is eating the B2B (Busines to Business) software market. Companies small or large are much happier not having to manage servers, installation, updates and security.
I don't particularly like SaaS either, but what is the alternative? It is impossible to self-install a web app on a server in a way that is easy and simple to do particularly for non-techical users. Until that happens (which may be never), SaaS will continue to grow and dominate the B2B market.
Imagine if installing a web server app was as easy as installing a desktop app. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers. My impression is that developers think it's a non-issue or have simply never thought about it.
(And no, before someone mentions it, Docker, Sandstorm, Cloudron, command-line installations etc are not easy-to-use options for non-technical users.)
SaaS is eating the B2B (Busines to Business) software market. Companies small or large are much happier not having to manage servers, installation, updates and security.
I don't particularly like SaaS either, but what is the alternative? It is impossible to self-install a web app on a server in a way that is easy and simple to do particularly for non-techical users. Until that happens (which may be never), SaaS will continue to grow and dominate the B2B market.
Imagine if installing a web server app was as easy as installing a desktop app. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers. My impression is that developers think it's a non-issue or have simply never thought about it.
(And no, before someone mentions it, Docker, Sandstorm, Cloudron, command-line installations etc are not easy-to-use options for non-technical users.)
You didn't mention other things security, scaling, keeping the service up, backing up. Securing a web application is HARD.
Very hard. Terrifying to me as a professional developer. I can't keep up with all of the possible failure paths. The more of that I can foist off on somebody who does it full time, the better. Then I can focus on my application domain rather than the basic mechanics of keeping the thing up and secure.
For installation, install apps feature on NAS product like Synology (that internally uses Docker) is easier. Managing, keep updating, HA, etc is different story.
Note this is not specifically SaaS-related. In more traditional models, you also have new releases and upgrades, therefore you need to evolve in order to convince your existing customers the upgrade is worth the cost. Sometimes the new product is a failure (Vista, Windows 8), sometimes they see the benefit and will migrate on their own (Windows XP, 7). In any case, you are forced by the marked to endlessly add new features to stay competitive. In practice, many of these features just use up precious system resources and create problems.
Even Free Software is vulnerable to this problem - Gnome is a good example. But fortunately in these cases people can take things into their own hands, and sometimes they do - and eventually we have such nice projects like Mate and Cinnamon.
Even Free Software is vulnerable to this problem - Gnome is a good example. But fortunately in these cases people can take things into their own hands, and sometimes they do - and eventually we have such nice projects like Mate and Cinnamon.
Exactly this. And if you have a problem, you don't want to go back to it every time the service changes fundamentally, they go out of business, get acquires by someone etc.
So much this. It happened to me when 1Password iPhone App changed and no longer required you to enter your master password with every phone restart. And that same month I made a minor tweak to my password (because I was using it so much for a new computer) and got locked out.
Other zero-value improvement was with Transit iPhone App. They made cosmetic GUI changes which make no sense (cover 50% of the map, swipe interaction target too big, transit line notifications screen gone) and they made zero improvements to transfer scheduling.
Weather Underground iPhone App took a compact and information rich GUI and turned it into a garish nightmare with 'speedometer' temperature graphic.
I've said it here again and again--I don't understand the point of ruining a good iPhone App. Why not treat it like a video game--just make a new one and support the old one with security updates? Heck. I get it. Double the code base, without the _perceived_ possibility of a revenue boost from the _new and improved_. At the very least make improvements very carefully (1Password), and if you have a hit don't redesign. Maybe --- make the old version the subscription and the new software ad-based? Maybe then you'd at least have a real measure of _new and improved_.
Other zero-value improvement was with Transit iPhone App. They made cosmetic GUI changes which make no sense (cover 50% of the map, swipe interaction target too big, transit line notifications screen gone) and they made zero improvements to transfer scheduling.
Weather Underground iPhone App took a compact and information rich GUI and turned it into a garish nightmare with 'speedometer' temperature graphic.
I've said it here again and again--I don't understand the point of ruining a good iPhone App. Why not treat it like a video game--just make a new one and support the old one with security updates? Heck. I get it. Double the code base, without the _perceived_ possibility of a revenue boost from the _new and improved_. At the very least make improvements very carefully (1Password), and if you have a hit don't redesign. Maybe --- make the old version the subscription and the new software ad-based? Maybe then you'd at least have a real measure of _new and improved_.
> But services can’t deal with just hitting the sweet spot and calling it a day.
The problem with the free market is that "sweet spot" is usually defined as what the majority wants. That's why I think we need open-source, so small companies can deal with the long tail.
The problem with the free market is that "sweet spot" is usually defined as what the majority wants. That's why I think we need open-source, so small companies can deal with the long tail.
Good advice, but this rant is about the tool not the domain ownership though.
You can own your own domain and use Wordpress self-hosted, then find they updated the UI constantly as you upgrade it keep it up to date for - you know - security.
The only way to get the level of control long term is probably sadly a static site generation kind of a thing.
There was a HN post about "software that is no longer changed but still used" as I am paraphrasing and this is an interesting idea.
A GUI blogging platform that ends it's life and stays as-is forever would be cool, even if it lack funky features, maybe you enter the HTML yourself.
You can own your own domain and use Wordpress self-hosted, then find they updated the UI constantly as you upgrade it keep it up to date for - you know - security.
The only way to get the level of control long term is probably sadly a static site generation kind of a thing.
There was a HN post about "software that is no longer changed but still used" as I am paraphrasing and this is an interesting idea.
A GUI blogging platform that ends it's life and stays as-is forever would be cool, even if it lack funky features, maybe you enter the HTML yourself.
I agree, you can own your own domain name without having to do everything yourself. Like anything else, if you don't want to do something, hire somebody else to do it.
I own my own domain name, and then pay others to take care of my website. I chose a cheap one for now. If I don't like their service, I can move my content somewhere else in the future. I could even have it hosted for free on GitHub, if I'm willing to live with him there constraints on static servers.
But I own the domain name, so no one can just take it down without any recourse. If someone decides to stop providing me a service, I can just take my stuff somewhere else.
Of course, you have to have a backup of the data, and use tools that are available elsewhere. But that really isn't that difficult. Static sites are really easy to manage this way. If you want something beyond the static site, it's not hard to use tools like WordPress which are open source software and widely available elsewhere. (Be cautious about adding plugins to Wordpress, some of them are security disasters, but at least you get to choose what you use.)
I own my own domain name, and then pay others to take care of my website. I chose a cheap one for now. If I don't like their service, I can move my content somewhere else in the future. I could even have it hosted for free on GitHub, if I'm willing to live with him there constraints on static servers.
But I own the domain name, so no one can just take it down without any recourse. If someone decides to stop providing me a service, I can just take my stuff somewhere else.
Of course, you have to have a backup of the data, and use tools that are available elsewhere. But that really isn't that difficult. Static sites are really easy to manage this way. If you want something beyond the static site, it's not hard to use tools like WordPress which are open source software and widely available elsewhere. (Be cautious about adding plugins to Wordpress, some of them are security disasters, but at least you get to choose what you use.)
If you want your services to be in control of you, self-host everything. That way all of your weekends and nights are for updating to FreeBSD 14 and debugging why postgres can't write to disk anymore oh wait I need to buy more storage and migrate everything
I don't agree. There are a lot of services which provide fully managed platforms with multiple competent providers you can migrate between. WordPress + CPanel does a great job at this, I've seen barely technical folks manage multiple websites and blogs,export and restore backups, migrate between providers. And this was all 10years back.
> And this was all 10years back.
Thankfully, we've tossed all that old stuff out and simplified things with Docker and k8s.
Thankfully, we've tossed all that old stuff out and simplified things with Docker and k8s.
Gonna suck for a while yes but long run there are real reasons for this jump from little daemons installed on to hosts to cloud native.
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"simplified" things with Docker and k8s.. if you are using docker for anything other than microservices and development environments you are doing it wrong.
Containers are substantially different to VMs, but in practice I see them as equivalent technologically and operationally for my home lab/self-hosting use cases (sans weaker security guarantees, but that I can live with).
They are a simplification in practice, because I can toss everything into a bunch of Pis that stay on 24/7 rather than worry about the power use (and the power bills) that would come with using a more fully-featured rack server/old PC that has enough RAM to deal with multiple VMs.
They are a simplification in practice, because I can toss everything into a bunch of Pis that stay on 24/7 rather than worry about the power use (and the power bills) that would come with using a more fully-featured rack server/old PC that has enough RAM to deal with multiple VMs.
Containerd then? Containers predate docker in the form of VMs, the only difference being optimizations with not having to run another entire OS kernel to get software running in the exact same state on many machines in just a few seconds.
You can always pay for managed versions of these services if you want the piece of mind. NextCloud and email providers come to mind.
Other than that, Docker has simplified things a lot in the self-hosting space. It's not quite as plug-and-play as Lego bricks yet, but it's made experimentation and sustainable self-hosting much easier as long as you're running on a supported platform. It's much easier to version the environment, much easier to keep the application runtime configuration clean, and much easier to move service instances across machines if you're too small to invest time in orchestration like K8s.
Other than that, Docker has simplified things a lot in the self-hosting space. It's not quite as plug-and-play as Lego bricks yet, but it's made experimentation and sustainable self-hosting much easier as long as you're running on a supported platform. It's much easier to version the environment, much easier to keep the application runtime configuration clean, and much easier to move service instances across machines if you're too small to invest time in orchestration like K8s.
ahh what. You mean running Hugo deploy to an S3 bucket with a cloudfront distribution infront. It costs like 2 bucks a month.
If you're blogging your content is perfect for static site generators. And there's other options that can make it even more simpler than that.
Hugo, s3, cloudfront? That sounds neither simple, nor well suited, for a lot of use cases like the local bakery or artist that wants to maintain a site. Most of the static site generator ecosystem seems to be aimed at developers that want too dabble in solutions way oversized for the problem. I don't need global CDNs for a site that sees loads easily served by WordPress or some other non-sexy CMS on a single instance of a random HTTP server, I need a CMS that I can put on there in 5 minutes, create an account and let people administer content. Sure, I realize there's a) valid use cases and b) options for that in the SSG space but quite a lot of the development there seems like solutions for imaginary or self imposed problems the world at large has moved on from.
I agree that static site generators could really use some better quick start features. But i disagree that turning on WordPress is any less complex. There's a lot more moving parts that your responsible for with wordpress than having a folder full of markdown files. The benefit of a CDN is the fantasy it gives you of people reading your blog en mass. And also it's all managed elsewhere and they handle ssl for you easily.
but you know hike your own hike and all that.
but you know hike your own hike and all that.
That's fair, I guess I'm a bit biased there by the ecosystem I've been using for decades. I was just thinking of this old stack as a nice middle ground, it's so boring pretty much every hoster is good at managing the major moving parts without any lock in.
Try https://netlify.com. My mother runs a small business, I moved her website from a shitty HostGator setup to there and it's been a charm.
Also, I run my company's website on it (https://assembl.net) and my blog (https://blog.slm.space). Very different sites, but they all run through Netlify. I haven't had a single problem with them.
I think even the most tech-illiterate could use it with their drag+drop site hosting feature + https://forestry.io CMS.
Also, I run my company's website on it (https://assembl.net) and my blog (https://blog.slm.space). Very different sites, but they all run through Netlify. I haven't had a single problem with them.
I think even the most tech-illiterate could use it with their drag+drop site hosting feature + https://forestry.io CMS.
Every time I break out of its ecosystem, I'm simply horrified. Using an external service from AWS or Google is a nightmare of configuration. They are both preparing on day 1 for your application to become Facebook and Amazon, forcing me to make decisions I don't even begin to judge, and opening pathways through security that might be right or might be complete disasters. The "happy path" for a new user is rarely clear, and the documentation is bewildering because it's aimed at much more difficult cases than mine.
Netlify does a great job of simplyfing to a small number of likely paths. At some point I'd surely break out of its use case and be forced to swim in the much deeper pool of a more general provider, but at least I'll have some grounding to start from.
Netlify does a great job of simplyfing to a small number of likely paths. At some point I'd surely break out of its use case and be forced to swim in the much deeper pool of a more general provider, but at least I'll have some grounding to start from.
Netlify is one of the few tools where everything is as I expect it. Everything I've done with it has 'just worked' and I love the automatic preview builds that are generated for GitHub PRs.
Static website generator with a markdown editor will end up cheaper probably.
Wordpress or drupal will generally end up easier as long as nothing goes wrong. From my experience with inexperienced use and users stuff will go wrong at some point and then it can be a bit more of a hassle.
Wordpress or drupal will generally end up easier as long as nothing goes wrong. From my experience with inexperienced use and users stuff will go wrong at some point and then it can be a bit more of a hassle.
They are definitely cheaper, as long as you already employ technical staff.
I've worked as an IT volunteer in a small org, and there was no dedicated tech beyond me. Any kind of setup that I built for authoring the website would have to be as usable by non-technical users as possible, so I went with Wordpress. I had no replacement and there was no-one with enough technical know-how to handle authoring and troubleshooting a cheap static site, so I deliberately chose WP to minimise problems. The cost was 2-3x larger than the cheaper alternatives, but ultimately it was keeping the website up that mattered.
I've worked as an IT volunteer in a small org, and there was no dedicated tech beyond me. Any kind of setup that I built for authoring the website would have to be as usable by non-technical users as possible, so I went with Wordpress. I had no replacement and there was no-one with enough technical know-how to handle authoring and troubleshooting a cheap static site, so I deliberately chose WP to minimise problems. The cost was 2-3x larger than the cheaper alternatives, but ultimately it was keeping the website up that mattered.
You really don’t need a DB for a blog. Just write to the file system.
Or if you need a DB, then use SQLite. It's a file that's also a relational database, and it's better than any file scheme you can come up with for this purpose.
You don't even need that. I write my post as a markdown file, commit it, and then gitlab compiles it, hosts it and manages the certificate.
Yes, let's remove our dependence on one corporation and instead put it into a far smaller and riskier one.
Its completely portable. I can dump the same repo on github and it works or I can compile it myself and dump the files on any webserver.
It is really not that hard... I spent less time setting some nginx / letsencrypt than trying to configure google loadbalancer for static files with https and their blob storage...
It likely will have a better uptime too and require less maintenance over the years
It likely will have a better uptime too and require less maintenance over the years
Debugging? If you could write to disk and suddenly can't.. you are out of diskspace.
If you can't tab complete you are out of diskspace.
Migrating for additional storage? Why not add additional storage..
If you can't tab complete you are out of diskspace.
Migrating for additional storage? Why not add additional storage..
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
That is a nice quote, but not helpful. This is a scenario that can happen and does happen, and that needs to be taken into account. Running and supporting anything of appreciable complexity and keeping it secure and legal is not free. I self-host a bunch of things and I do feel this pain quite acutely at times. This can be a very strong argument in favor of SaaS snd should not just be brushed aside.
I have Corona
I don't think sites like blogspot and medium says it is their content. Also, on the flip side I know that most of the self hosted sites dies in 5 years. You can say that it is their fault, but statistically speaking I would pretty much assume that the site will die. Thirdly, self hosting is not that easy. Even most developers do not have complete knowledge of things like server management, security, migration, networking etc. let alone other users.
> You can then switch providers, switch systems you use, or whatever you want to do.
Switching from say blogspot to medium is much more easier than even switching between two regions of AWS. Switching cloud provider is tough.
> You can then switch providers, switch systems you use, or whatever you want to do.
Switching from say blogspot to medium is much more easier than even switching between two regions of AWS. Switching cloud provider is tough.
> Even most developers do not have complete knowledge of things like server management, security, migration, networking etc. let alone other users.
You don't need to! Managed Hosting is cheap as it can get!
2 €/month will get you 25 GB of web storage + 25 GB of mail storage, a .de domain (in my case at least), SSL through "Let's Encrypt", PHP, MySQL, 100 mailboxes, full control over the DNS records and whatnot else.
For 3 €/month you get three times of that.
Hosting is really dirt cheap and competent people will take care of all the messy stuff you don't know about.
You don't need to! Managed Hosting is cheap as it can get!
2 €/month will get you 25 GB of web storage + 25 GB of mail storage, a .de domain (in my case at least), SSL through "Let's Encrypt", PHP, MySQL, 100 mailboxes, full control over the DNS records and whatnot else.
For 3 €/month you get three times of that.
Hosting is really dirt cheap and competent people will take care of all the messy stuff you don't know about.
nearlyfreespeech.net is where I usually end up, pay for what you use model is great.
These guys look interesting, but I've never used them: http://www.nosupportlinuxhosting.com/VPSHosting.html
These guys look interesting, but I've never used them: http://www.nosupportlinuxhosting.com/VPSHosting.html
That kind of pricing would be a miracle, or an introductory offer in my experience. Who are you using?
As written further down, I'm currently going with netcup.de, which some consider kind of a "discount hoster", but it works for me.
You can also choose hetzner.de, which I think is somewhat of a "higher level" hoster and it's still pretty cheap: https://www.hetzner.de/webhosting
2 or 5 €/month is just worth it for me. Even if I could get a VPS for free, patching it, making sure everything runs just fine would take more time than it costs me with any (German) hoster who takes care of all the things I don't know about.
You can also choose hetzner.de, which I think is somewhat of a "higher level" hoster and it's still pretty cheap: https://www.hetzner.de/webhosting
2 or 5 €/month is just worth it for me. Even if I could get a VPS for free, patching it, making sure everything runs just fine would take more time than it costs me with any (German) hoster who takes care of all the things I don't know about.
What provider do you use?
Right now I'm going with netcup.de for normal hosting, but I got some vServer cloud whateverthingies running with hetzner.de (they also have managed hosting for < 2 €/month) for a PiHole and tinkering.
I've been a happy customer of all-inkl.com for like 10 years or so, mainly switched to netcup because they were cheaper.
But all-inkl is great for business, 24/7 phone support and you talk to REAL people and technicians call you back for no extra cost and things like that.
I've been a happy customer of all-inkl.com for like 10 years or so, mainly switched to netcup because they were cheaper.
But all-inkl is great for business, 24/7 phone support and you talk to REAL people and technicians call you back for no extra cost and things like that.
I'm working on a blogging platform which of course allows you to add your custom domain(s).
Another feature we have is being able to add any URL you like to your posts or even redirects to the "main URL". So for example if you migrate from WP and some post had this URL:
Are there other features you'd like to have to feel "in control"?
Another feature we have is being able to add any URL you like to your posts or even redirects to the "main URL". So for example if you migrate from WP and some post had this URL:
domain.com/posts/123
domain.com/hello-world
Are there other features you'd like to have to feel "in control"?
Stylesheets or having many themes would be nice. I find a lot of blogging / hosting platforms work well out of the box but are a pain to customise.
In the end I just did my own github pages, with good ol fashioned html and css that I manually coded
In the end I just did my own github pages, with good ol fashioned html and css that I manually coded
We will have themes with settings. We would like to support custom themes but certainly not at launch. It would probably make more sense to work as a headless CMS so you can plug it into your SSG of choice and have total control.
> We're also working on a feature to be able to download all your content in a .zip file with HTML files, markdown files, and images.
Can you go to another instance of the platform, upload your zip backup, and restore everything?
I've had that feature on my blog for years[0], and backup/restore feature has come in handy so many times, from setting up a dev environment to outright saving my bacon.
[0] https://github.com/theandrewbailey/toilet
Example backup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HUkiovCL-lRZa7DTc1JVPhDGxxu...
Can you go to another instance of the platform, upload your zip backup, and restore everything?
I've had that feature on my blog for years[0], and backup/restore feature has come in handy so many times, from setting up a dev environment to outright saving my bacon.
[0] https://github.com/theandrewbailey/toilet
Example backup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HUkiovCL-lRZa7DTc1JVPhDGxxu...
We're not WP or Ghost, so there is really no other instance of the platform. You could copy paste the files on the zip and use them with any SSG though.
We would also like to have a WP plugin so you can import the zip into a WP install, although there's so much to do right now that this is not really a priority.
We would also like to have a WP plugin so you can import the zip into a WP install, although there's so much to do right now that this is not really a priority.
Like you said, get your own domain. But crucially get a good unique pseudonym before you start. Don't get your own name, unless it is really unique.
Your pseudonym should meet 2 criteria:
1) There shouldn't already be any obvious search engine results associated with it
2) It should be unique and easy enough for the common person to recall (aim at least to be recalled when you see the name on a list of multiple names but ultimately to be recalled from fuzzy memory directly or by means of searching for a key word)
1) There shouldn't already be any obvious search engine results associated with it
2) It should be unique and easy enough for the common person to recall (aim at least to be recalled when you see the name on a list of multiple names but ultimately to be recalled from fuzzy memory directly or by means of searching for a key word)
3) it should be unambiguous to spell verbally. Avoid cute mis-spellings and often-confused letters such as m and n
>If you post on someone else's domain, then it's their content, and they're in control of it, not you. No matter what is claimed otherwise.
Likewise, if you are paying for hosting and a domain to any corporation, they effectively control your published content. Isn't that so? A hosting company can remove your account; a domain registrar can ban you, too. Isn't that what had been happening to Gab?
The only way you can be in full control of your own content is publishing a hidden service on Tor, an eepsite on I2P, a site on ZeroNet--provided you use it with Tor--, etcetera. Sure, it's availability at the expense of visibility, but that's how it is right now.
Likewise, if you are paying for hosting and a domain to any corporation, they effectively control your published content. Isn't that so? A hosting company can remove your account; a domain registrar can ban you, too. Isn't that what had been happening to Gab?
The only way you can be in full control of your own content is publishing a hidden service on Tor, an eepsite on I2P, a site on ZeroNet--provided you use it with Tor--, etcetera. Sure, it's availability at the expense of visibility, but that's how it is right now.
Yes, but if you have the content and maybe even a static site generated by Hugo or something on a computer you control, it doesn't take more than few minutes to deploy the whole site to a new host and transfer the domain to point to the new address.
What if your content is deemed too controversial or "problematic"? Will any company host it? Any domain registrar? Many topics now considered unpublishable weren't, not that long ago. And that's a slippery slope I wouldn't dare to test. The free flow of information must prevail if we want to preserve our freedom.
I don't think anyone's capacity to publish anything online should rely on trust nor gatekeepers.
I don't think anyone's capacity to publish anything online should rely on trust nor gatekeepers.
Given your initial example was Gab, I'd say that if we want to preserve freedom we must have the ability to make those things unpublishable.
To quote Karl Popper:
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
To quote Karl Popper:
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
I don't think it was necessary to quote anyone in order to make such a simplistic point across, though I get why anyone would do that--to appeal to authority, of course.
In any case, and even though I'm not advocating here for "unlimited tolerance"--only freedom of speech, which is not one and the same--I'll bite:
>But we should claim the right to suppress them [the "intolerant"] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument.
Who is "we" and "us", here? Who gets to decide which community or group, which kind of action or speech, do "we" have the right to supress, "even by force"? What criteria are "we" going to use to do so? Will it be chosen through a majority vote? Sociocratic consensus? A deliberative process, perhaps? Where do we put the limit on when to act? There may be groups of people or ideas that "we" could consider dangerous enough to supress them long in advance--you know, take some risks with potentially innocent people. Let's supress political dissidents, as well; "they" could be dangerous for "us".
Look, most of what is deemed "intolerant" or "offensive" isn't a clear-cut example of an existential threat to anyone or an evident danger one has to extirpate before it's too late. Moreover, the criteria is highly unstable, prone to rapidly change over media manipulation, corporations' interests, historical circumstances, culture, etcetera. I'd prefer letting everyone speak and act freely, acting with the full force of law when anyone's integrity is clearly and directly at risk, and never before.
In any case, and even though I'm not advocating here for "unlimited tolerance"--only freedom of speech, which is not one and the same--I'll bite:
>But we should claim the right to suppress them [the "intolerant"] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument.
Who is "we" and "us", here? Who gets to decide which community or group, which kind of action or speech, do "we" have the right to supress, "even by force"? What criteria are "we" going to use to do so? Will it be chosen through a majority vote? Sociocratic consensus? A deliberative process, perhaps? Where do we put the limit on when to act? There may be groups of people or ideas that "we" could consider dangerous enough to supress them long in advance--you know, take some risks with potentially innocent people. Let's supress political dissidents, as well; "they" could be dangerous for "us".
Look, most of what is deemed "intolerant" or "offensive" isn't a clear-cut example of an existential threat to anyone or an evident danger one has to extirpate before it's too late. Moreover, the criteria is highly unstable, prone to rapidly change over media manipulation, corporations' interests, historical circumstances, culture, etcetera. I'd prefer letting everyone speak and act freely, acting with the full force of law when anyone's integrity is clearly and directly at risk, and never before.
Consider hosting in a country less politicized on the said issues. I think for example you could host most traditional views without the any issue in Japan, for three reasons: freedeom of speech is guaranteed by constitution, they likely won’t bother with foreign language and the said views are mainstream here.
Given how the problem of free expression is becoming in the West, there is a business opportunity on medium-term I think.
Given how the problem of free expression is becoming in the West, there is a business opportunity on medium-term I think.
Ooh yes is so blatantly obvious that this is some developers' vanity project that he enthusiastically promoted in order to get his own promotion. Really bad redesign for no reason at all, ending in a frankenstein solution of mix of old and new interface. Great developers like this should stay in google forever.
Similar thing with paypal's redesign
Similar thing with paypal's redesign
> Ooh yes is so blatantly obvious that this is just some developers' vanity project that he enthusiastically promoted in order to get his own promotion.
To be fair, if it was a project to get promoted it wasn't really a vanity project. If it was a vainty project I suspect they wouldn't have quite half way through.
> Really bad redesign for no reason at all, ending in a frankenstein solution of mix of old and new interface.
From the looks of it, it's just applying Google's design that is everywhere else to Blogger. While for many people here this isn't needed. But we're for the most part considered advanced users of majority of things we use. This seems like a change that would make it easier for people who aren't that computer savy and are used to gmail and the other Google products and want to start blogging.
To be fair, if it was a project to get promoted it wasn't really a vanity project. If it was a vainty project I suspect they wouldn't have quite half way through.
> Really bad redesign for no reason at all, ending in a frankenstein solution of mix of old and new interface.
From the looks of it, it's just applying Google's design that is everywhere else to Blogger. While for many people here this isn't needed. But we're for the most part considered advanced users of majority of things we use. This seems like a change that would make it easier for people who aren't that computer savy and are used to gmail and the other Google products and want to start blogging.
I doubt this was a “vanity project”. Blogger is ossified: it rarely ever changes significantly, but Google won’t kill it because it still generates significant amount of content on which they get a degree of control. It’s long looked like nobody really wanted to touch it. After all, behind the scenes it was (originally, at least) an awkward static-site generator - it cannot be much fun to hack on.
It’s more likely that someone somewhere was told to drag the UI forward for some internal-corporate-governance reason. Blogger had a bunch of features that were clearly built in different “eras” and looked terribly mismatched, they’ve probably realigned some of them too.
It’s more likely that someone somewhere was told to drag the UI forward for some internal-corporate-governance reason. Blogger had a bunch of features that were clearly built in different “eras” and looked terribly mismatched, they’ve probably realigned some of them too.
> just some developers' vanity project
I think you underestimate the number of people involved in these kinds of projects.. guarantee there were multiple product managers, a host of UX designers, engineering managers, and devs. It's much harder for a developer to get a thing like this through than a product person.
I think you underestimate the number of people involved in these kinds of projects.. guarantee there were multiple product managers, a host of UX designers, engineering managers, and devs. It's much harder for a developer to get a thing like this through than a product person.
A problem is that people have to justify their employment, so they have to do 'something' even if that 'something' does not improve things. The other option they have is to move to another division/project. Moving may not always be an option.
> Great developers like this should stay in google forever.
Not to promote snark as a primary means of comment here on HN, but this sarcastic little nugget of a sentence really had me chuckling for quite some time.
Not to promote snark as a primary means of comment here on HN, but this sarcastic little nugget of a sentence really had me chuckling for quite some time.
Maintaining legacy UI frameworks is a tech debt for organizations, so there is always a move to migrate to new frameworks.
It seems these pointless redesigns that only worsen the experience are everywhere.
The Reddit one is another perfect example.
The Reddit one is another perfect example.
The reddit redesign was far from pointless. It turned the site in to the perfect data extracting, ad showing, engagement boosting site. They redesign was a massive success for reddit the corporation.
They didn't have to do a complete redesign and make the site slow in order to add the features that increased engagement.
Both infiniscroll and automatically expanded images were possible with the old reddit by using a browser extension and the site still felt lightweight and kept the same look.
Both infiniscroll and automatically expanded images were possible with the old reddit by using a browser extension and the site still felt lightweight and kept the same look.
i get plenty of ads using the old site too. How do you know they increased engagement?
The site is significantly clumsier and more frustrating to use than it once was, thus you have to spend more time on it for the same amount of information, thus "engagement" is increased.
I imagine you don't have to worry about it for very long; next they'll announce that it's shutting down and that you can use the YouTube community tab instead
they will let you know you have a month to transfer your blog to YouTube community, and at the end of that period if you haven't transitioned (a process whose ramifications in terms of privacy and how it affects your ability to keep separate identities on different platforms are entirely opaque) your entire blog will be deleted and lost forever.
Sandstorm has accidentally solved the problem of rapid change by not having enough developers to continually update the available applications, which include Wordpress. You can also ignore updates.
Thankfully, the architecture of Sandstorm turns many types of vulnerabilities in the installed applications into non-events. This means that the lack of updates is not so alarming.
https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non-event...
Thankfully, the architecture of Sandstorm turns many types of vulnerabilities in the installed applications into non-events. This means that the lack of updates is not so alarming.
https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non-event...
Good to hear Sandstorm is still alive! It is precisely the kind of thing that has some chance of making self hosted popular among the wider public, instead of ever shrinking patches maintained by die-hard enthusiasts inside a sea of corporate silos.
Ok nobody asked but what about the guy at Blogger team who's role is to make up bullshit OKRs and get promotions?
spoken like someone who remembers the kennedy announcement.
And for those who may not, the 2011 "Kennedy" UI initiative at Google.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-h...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620566
https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-h...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620566
These kind of announcements probably happen all the time within Apple, why do people rage when someone else tries to fix UI inconsistency in L&F and behavior, but Apple does it by changing what you're use to without asking you, and nary a peep?
At least other companies sometimes let you keep the old theme/skin for awhile.
At least other companies sometimes let you keep the old theme/skin for awhile.
so, this isn't kennedy-specific, but from a mostly outsider's perspective (I worked at google for a long long time, but not on any of this stuff), I think it's motive. apple sells hardware to users & google sells eyeballs to advertisers.
the most benign explanation for google's constant UI redesign is that it is, as the GP said, some "guy on blogger team who's role is to make up bullshit OKRs and get promotions". as a user of these products, that pointless churn is incredibly frustrating.
The less benign explanation is that it's about increasing my eyeball time for advertisers. as a human being, that's incredibly infuriating; especially when the "redesign" doesn't offer me anything in return (I'm looking at you google music / youtube music)
the most benign explanation for google's constant UI redesign is that it is, as the GP said, some "guy on blogger team who's role is to make up bullshit OKRs and get promotions". as a user of these products, that pointless churn is incredibly frustrating.
The less benign explanation is that it's about increasing my eyeball time for advertisers. as a human being, that's incredibly infuriating; especially when the "redesign" doesn't offer me anything in return (I'm looking at you google music / youtube music)
Isn't every redesign of a UI about increasing the preference for people to use the app? This kind of explanation is like saying "Apple only improves their UI because they want to make more money", implying that changes to UI should only ever be down for purely altruistic reasons.
There are three things Google could have done with Blogger:
1) destaff the team maintaining it and let it die. Result: people complaining Google killed yet another project
2) staff the team and give them some freedom to actually do interesting work instead, instead of hiring someone to baby sit a closet of frozen servers. Result: "Who moved my cheese?"
3) Hire a babysitter, and charge a fee for running a blog or divest it to someone who wants to run it. Result: "Bait and switch! Google offered a free product for years and years, and now they want to charge money for it!"
In any of the scenarios, people will be upset Let's face it, a lot of us through Blogger was dead, like Tumblr, a distant memory. The fact that there's engineers actively working on it should give those depending on it some comfort, vs a baby-sitter project where it could die at any moment once the last team member leaves for greener pastures.
Blogger was launched in 1999, it's 20+ years ago now. Are people really asking a company not to change the UI and make large changes to something 20 years old?
There are three things Google could have done with Blogger:
1) destaff the team maintaining it and let it die. Result: people complaining Google killed yet another project
2) staff the team and give them some freedom to actually do interesting work instead, instead of hiring someone to baby sit a closet of frozen servers. Result: "Who moved my cheese?"
3) Hire a babysitter, and charge a fee for running a blog or divest it to someone who wants to run it. Result: "Bait and switch! Google offered a free product for years and years, and now they want to charge money for it!"
In any of the scenarios, people will be upset Let's face it, a lot of us through Blogger was dead, like Tumblr, a distant memory. The fact that there's engineers actively working on it should give those depending on it some comfort, vs a baby-sitter project where it could die at any moment once the last team member leaves for greener pastures.
Blogger was launched in 1999, it's 20+ years ago now. Are people really asking a company not to change the UI and make large changes to something 20 years old?
Why not list the obvious option?
Option 4: Just keep it running as is.
Option 4: Just keep it running as is.
That is option 1, it will die if unattended.
Keeping it running means somebody does attend to it, if only for maintenance. There's no reason why it should die in that case. I'd argue that by definition, something doesn't die if you keep it running.
Unless you mean "it dies" in some other, more unusual sense?
Unless you mean "it dies" in some other, more unusual sense?
The web is not static, browsers are not static. Things change or they die.
Why when someone complains about something Google did does somebody always reply "nobody complains when Apple does the same thing," and when someone complains about something Apple did somebody always replies "nobody complains when Google does the same thing?"
The iOS / Android fanboi schism is a plague. It replicates the worst of 2-party politics, put at the service of the wealthiest corporations on the planet.
The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline |
511 points | July 26, 2016 | 431 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12164021
Scrollbars: Why is Apple eradicating a linchpin of user interface design? | 20 points | Nov 10, 2011 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3218291
Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard | 1183 points |June 28, 2018 | 912 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572
MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy | 655 points | Aug 28, 2019 | 580 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20824984
Apple faces class action lawsuit over failing MacBook butterfly keyboards | 322 points | May 12, 2018 | 271 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17054710
Scrollbars: Why is Apple eradicating a linchpin of user interface design? | 20 points | Nov 10, 2011 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3218291
Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard | 1183 points |June 28, 2018 | 912 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572
MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy | 655 points | Aug 28, 2019 | 580 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20824984
Apple faces class action lawsuit over failing MacBook butterfly keyboards | 322 points | May 12, 2018 | 271 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17054710
I'm shocked Blogger made any changes at all. Always assumed they were in maintainance mode. I'm really curious how many people are still on the blogger team at Google.
They had to give them some work
> I'm probably the last person on earth to do so, but I write my posts in raw HTML.
Although I don't use Blogger/Blogspot anymore and I render my blog using a static site generator [1], I too write my posts in raw HTML [2].
In the past, the differences in how various tools interpret and render some of the corner case scenarios like nested lists, code blocks or blockquotes nested within lists, etc. caused issues in porting my Markdown files from one system to another. Granted, there is CommonMark now and I think it is a pretty good specification but it is not a standard like HTML5 is. I prefer standards, so that I know with a reasonable degree of confidence that what I write now would look the same 10 years from now.
[1]: https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite (Disclosure: My wife developed this project)
[2]: https://github.com/susam/susam.in/tree/master/content/blog
Although I don't use Blogger/Blogspot anymore and I render my blog using a static site generator [1], I too write my posts in raw HTML [2].
In the past, the differences in how various tools interpret and render some of the corner case scenarios like nested lists, code blocks or blockquotes nested within lists, etc. caused issues in porting my Markdown files from one system to another. Granted, there is CommonMark now and I think it is a pretty good specification but it is not a standard like HTML5 is. I prefer standards, so that I know with a reasonable degree of confidence that what I write now would look the same 10 years from now.
[1]: https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite (Disclosure: My wife developed this project)
[2]: https://github.com/susam/susam.in/tree/master/content/blog
These days, I am thinking that relying heavily on a particular Blog service has a risk. Those services will be eventually gone. Blogger is no exception. Like all the services Google purchased and abandoned in the past. I don't want to risk losing all the writings I intended to publish on the Internet.
But, blogging is not that important enough for me to set up a my very own dedicated web server.
So, these days, I'm simply using GitHub Pages for the blog. I realized all I need is to host static HTML files. I can write locally with my favourite text editor, git commit & git push to publish it. No need to use web browser at all.
Even if GitHub is gone, I have entire data on my multiple storages I owned and rented.
I can do this with other Blog services but I have to automate the web browser operation to copy&paste the writings for each blog services, which is not necessary if I simply use GitHub.
But, blogging is not that important enough for me to set up a my very own dedicated web server.
So, these days, I'm simply using GitHub Pages for the blog. I realized all I need is to host static HTML files. I can write locally with my favourite text editor, git commit & git push to publish it. No need to use web browser at all.
Even if GitHub is gone, I have entire data on my multiple storages I owned and rented.
I can do this with other Blog services but I have to automate the web browser operation to copy&paste the writings for each blog services, which is not necessary if I simply use GitHub.
> But, blogging is not that important enough for me to set up a my very own dedicated web server.
If for some reason you wind up wanting to move off of GitHub, I've found Linodes bottom tier to be great for hosting a small static site. You do have to configure the webserver yourself of course, but it's a step down in complexity from self hosting.
If for some reason you wind up wanting to move off of GitHub, I've found Linodes bottom tier to be great for hosting a small static site. You do have to configure the webserver yourself of course, but it's a step down in complexity from self hosting.
Rather ironic that the post mentions things like accessibility while using a blog layout that is not responsive on mobiles, and looks like crap with tiny, unreadable text on large screens.
I thought Google had completely abandoned Blogger. Is there a reason they are investing in it again?
The same reason that some other Google products have been redesigned recently: They used GWT and GWT has been deprecated.
Non-UI code is able to be compiled with J2CL, which shares GWT's runtime. However, the UI would have to be replaced with Wiz.
Ah, that explains why the long moribund Groups has been updated too.
When they launched the last Gmail redesign in 2018 I used an extension to check what they had used and it showed up Vue:
https://twitter.com/PierB/status/989630991051476992
It doesn't show up anymore so they probably obfuscated it.
https://twitter.com/PierB/status/989630991051476992
It doesn't show up anymore so they probably obfuscated it.
Gmail uses Wiz. The extension was probably misclassifying it.
https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/958696304149868545
https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/958696304149868545
[deleted]
I have a newbie question.
Since blogger is such a stable platform and hasn't seen much change feature wise for sometime now, why does one have to rewrite it if some framework that is uses has been deprecated.
Just asking.
Since blogger is such a stable platform and hasn't seen much change feature wise for sometime now, why does one have to rewrite it if some framework that is uses has been deprecated.
Just asking.
Protecting it from security holes in the framework would be one reason.
Ensuring somebody in your org still knows how it works and could fix stuff in a pinch, is another.
Ensuring somebody in your org still knows how it works and could fix stuff in a pinch, is another.
Too many UI designers and not enough real work for them to do?
Seems to me there's far too much of that sort of thing going on in the software economy (not just UI designers!) -- far too much redeveloping existing wheels (and usually not for the better) and far too little actual advancement of the state of the art, far too little actual innovation.
Seems to me there's far too much of that sort of thing going on in the software economy (not just UI designers!) -- far too much redeveloping existing wheels (and usually not for the better) and far too little actual advancement of the state of the art, far too little actual innovation.
Somebody wanted to get promoted and needed to show "impact". Count your blessings that they didn't decide to show impact by creating yet another google chat app.
At some point this sort of response to every post with "Google" in the title became akin to responding "First!!" on every post. That point was, frankly, something like a year ago.
I think you're talking about the second sentence in my post, when really that was just a joke. The main point was that it was probably done by someone looking to show an impact for promotion, which I don't think is a HN meme regarding google, like (n+1 chat apps, google eats your privacy, what will google deprecate next) are.
An ambitious/driven PM was put on the project, and he/she is making more aggressive demands than all the ones in the last 10 years <- opinion
I'm trying to think of internet brands that have successfully reinvented themselves, like analogous to an alternate universe where Myspace relaunches and becomes a thing. Maybe blogspot is a going concern, but it seems like the Altavista of internet publishing to me. Winner may take all in network effect companies, but does it mean you also only get one shot, or is there a "retro" effect online too?
To adapt another adage, users don't leave products, they leave communities. The idea of starting a new blog on blogspot doesn't really register for me anymore. Or maybe I'm out of touch?
To adapt another adage, users don't leave products, they leave communities. The idea of starting a new blog on blogspot doesn't really register for me anymore. Or maybe I'm out of touch?
I just checked out the new UI for creating and editing new blogger articles. It seems OK to me, but I understand the author’s complaints.
I have switched 3 or 4 times between using blogger and using a static site generator. This is easy to do because tools like Jekyll easily import blogger data dumps. Moving back from a static generated blog to blogger is a few copy and paste operations.
I like having everything in my domain, but using blogger is convenient. Right now, I am using blogger again, but periodically generate a static blog that I also link on my domain as a backup.
I have switched 3 or 4 times between using blogger and using a static site generator. This is easy to do because tools like Jekyll easily import blogger data dumps. Moving back from a static generated blog to blogger is a few copy and paste operations.
I like having everything in my domain, but using blogger is convenient. Right now, I am using blogger again, but periodically generate a static blog that I also link on my domain as a backup.
Someone thought of a way to keep their job at Google.
Seriously though, I'd love to see some stats on Blogger traffic today and what level of ad revenue it contribute to Google. It's got to be a cash cow for them to keep it running for so long.
Seriously though, I'd love to see some stats on Blogger traffic today and what level of ad revenue it contribute to Google. It's got to be a cash cow for them to keep it running for so long.
It seems like google likes to engineer problems without considering the solution they already have in place. A handful of messaging platforms... etc.
Shameless plug: if you just need a simple blog, check out DynaBlogger (https://www.dynablogger.com), a new blogging platform I just launched
> Google, nobody asked for a new Blogger interface
... and new Google Sites interface too.[0]
[0] https://twitter.com/P_Nezzie/status/1292457186971529217
... and new Google Sites interface too.[0]
[0] https://twitter.com/P_Nezzie/status/1292457186971529217
This is google being google. Blogger underwent a refresh maybe about 5 years ago, and that too was trending in this (worse) direction.
Wait, people are still using blogspot?
I have a blog there since 2002. I’ve run personal websites before and after, which have long fallen to my laziness for sysadmin tasks. Blogger alwyas works, costs me nothing, doesn’t try too hard, doesn’t go down if traffic surges, and gives me significant google-juice.
Yes, I have had my blog in there since 2005, if it isn't broken why should I fix it?
Recently I've also started a new personal project which mainly consists in posting a new "article" every few days with 5 to 10 photos attached to it, I've found blogspot a lot more handy to use than doing all that on my linode instance (I hate being in the "image managing" business) or on any other blogging platform. I could have chosen wordpress, but I'm not sure how much "free" hard-disk space they provide by default.
Recently I've also started a new personal project which mainly consists in posting a new "article" every few days with 5 to 10 photos attached to it, I've found blogspot a lot more handy to use than doing all that on my linode instance (I hate being in the "image managing" business) or on any other blogging platform. I could have chosen wordpress, but I'm not sure how much "free" hard-disk space they provide by default.
And it puts full justify on comments... eww.
gotta get that promo tho
Google engineers wanted impact to get promoted, consider this a natural result (or whatever other rationale that does not put user satisfaction as the first criteria)
Someone mentioned elsewhere in the thread, it was updated because it depended on obsolete libraries. Presumably the new libraries made the new design more straightforward to implement than attempting to reproduce the existing one.
What, exactly, was "obsolete" about those libraries. Did the code stop executing? Were they written in languages whose compilers/interpreters stopped functioning? Or were there simply newer, shinier toys to play with?
If it was written in python, it can really stop working. Most companies are transitioning to Python3.
If you think I'm joking, there are huge companies that have already declared Python2 as non-supported software, so if you have any software written in Python2 you have to either rewrite or stop using it.
Absolutely everything connected to the internet needs to be kept up to date for a simple reason. Security.
We're past the 90's when "the code stopped executing" was the only valid reason for an update :-)
We're past the 90's when "the code stopped executing" was the only valid reason for an update :-)
If you post on someone else's domain, then it's their content, and they're in control of it, not you. No matter what is claimed otherwise.
Yes, it's harder. Getting visibility is also harder. It's still the only solution if you want to be in control.
It's okay to pay someone to run the blogging platform, etc., as long as you own the domain name & can decide what it points to. You can then switch providers, switch systems you use, or whatever you want to do. But if you don't control the domain name, someone else is in control.