DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD

So I took a decision some days ago, to pay for the domain here on wordpress, hoping to make this my main blog.. cause as you know I tried many other solutions that didn’t work for me. And as I recalled, then wordpress had a very versatile interface.

Exept with their last update, everything I need is behind a paywall, and not just any paywall, but like a €300 paywall. I refuse to pay that, I mean I’d be better off buying a url at a webhotel, and build my page with html (i did that before you know).. I NEED the page to show feeds, but I can’t – and it pisses me right off. I mean it does have a custom html option but it just doesn’t work – why? Cause they want you to pay for their business solution. fuck that – fuck that with a cactus.

I will find a solution, I will figure out a way to circumvent it, but I am not a happy panda!

Okay let me make my case, why WordPress is a significantly shittier platform to blog from, than just a year ago. And why you should NOT be a dumbfuck like me, and throw money after nothing. I absolutely advise you to use another blog, even Blogger is better, I shit you not.

First. I need a page that allows java, WordPress does allow java, and I used plugins before, cause I had wordpress for many years. And maybe I am extra salty because it used to be good, and very easy to customize. Alright I have many projects, and many things I want to share and show. Some of these is best done, and most “fluent” in a feed. Let’s start with Goodreads.

GOODREADS

Now Goodreads have some widgets, that will let you showcase your books, there is one right here on your right. But that is also the ONLY widget useable if you use WordPress.

as you can see, it’s a </style> html, that will allow you to show progress in books you’re reading & chapter comments instead of manually typing it into a blog post. Goodreads even warns you, as I highlighted in yellow. And yeah, this does not work. I tried everything. Super annoying, but we all know that java does have some flaws, so maybe it’s because it’s a insecure unstable script? I soldiered on, thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a big deal, and if people are really interested they can come friend me on Goodreads.

REDBUBBLE

Next I tried with Redbubble, cause in your settings of your shop, there is a widget with html to enter to your blog/website, to showcase your stuff, and that would be all kinds of neat and very accessable, amirite? wrong.

I figured that it would be fine since it was a </script> html… no dice brother, it was the same shit, even if I tried to enter it as custom html, cause there IS a block option for that. But no matter how I tried to tweak the html code, or redo it to CSS code, it just sort of ate half the text and showed the rest as normal text. It would look fine (unlike the goodreads widget) on my draft, but once published, it looked as I described above, and this was where I switched into detective mode.

WORDPRESS & HTML

In their help section you can read about how to add custom html to your page, and it just said use the custom html block. I scrolled down and what do you know…

And I started laughing… If you don’t know html, I can tell you that what is basically allowed is text edits, like bold text, and strikeout, code space (where you show code on the site so ppl can copy paste it), and text size, you know… more space between lines and so… text edits.

The html NOT allowed for “security reasons” are any and all html that would let you embed a feed. And now it started to make sense – so if you click the ‘plugin-enabled sites’ where this dangerous html is not so dangerous after all… we get

yep you guessed it, a list of plans. And so if I wanted to have a redbubble or goodreads feed, I need plugins, and when can I use that you say? well the business plan of course (and above), as I highlighted in yellow. This means that you have to pay motherfucking (excuse my french) €300 a year to use plugins on your page, which would magically make </iframe> safe, but if you use a free version, it will haunt your family and eat your dog. that is common knowledge.

FML.

THE OLD DAYS

Once you could actually just build your entire page with html, but that is not an option anymore, so I couldn’t cheat the system like that. Alright I thought to myself, back in the days there was WordPress Plugins | WordPress.org where you could download the plugins as zip files and install them in the plugin folder manually. Genious!

Exept you don’t GET a local library anymore, you cannot download your freaking wordpress and work offline. But I suppose you can also magically get that if you pay, I am not sure if it’s what isolated site infastructure, or centralized site management means, but I wouldn’t be surprised. (what kind of lame tech buzzwords is that even, no one knows, but it sounds super important).

YOUTUBE

My last ditch effort was youtube, cause there is an integrated youtube widget, and so I figured that maybe then it would let me have a feed of new videos as I publish them. Oh my sweet summerchild, you would be very WRONG!

So what I did was to use the youtube block, and type in my channel feed url… and please note the corner up there where it says ‘youtube’ cause I am working within a youtube widget. click ’embed’.

and you get a link (it doesn’t look like it, but it will turn into a link if I publish the draft) and note the corner, it says ‘paragraph’ because I am now working with bulk text like I am typing right now this moment. And no longer within the youtube widget.

If one had read closely what it said under the logo in the widget info in the corner, I would have read it said ’embed a video’, so I tried with a random video I have made, and yeah that works. I’m even PROTECTED, not sure from what, probably those nasty unsafe html codes 😛

CONCLUSION

WordPress no longer does a single fucking thing that I need, and was the reason why I chose to pay for a personal plan, and get the .blog extension to my site. It’s not money given out well, that is for fucking sure and I am furious. Why have they removed everything that made wordpress good? And I suspect that much more will be hidden behind a paywall, like customise your theme (it’s pretty restricted now as it is, can’t use custom css without paying €96 annualy for premium) that is new, and that was one of the great things, custom css I mean. Widgets are pretty restricted too, and some you can only use in your sitebar, and not all themes/layouts will allow a sitebar and so you are just shit out of luck.

You could say I am just whining, and there is a free version after all, they didn’t have to have that. True… but when the free version is shit, it’s actually worse than nothing. It’s a joke, man.

I am not done tho, cause look at this.

This plugin is preinstalled in your adminstrator workspace, but to use it, you need to upgrade to business. that is a bold move wordpress, actually just as annoying as Discord and their Nitro shit. It’s super super uncool. Jetpack is also preinstalled, but you can’t use that either unless you upgrade. Why have them there pr default?

And the email, note the little letter icon in the side bar, saying indbakke (means inbox) well back in the days you could have a ’email me’ link through there, but if you wanted a @wordpress email you had to pay. But now it will cost you extra, like over hundred € to even integrate an email. no matter if you want their extension or not, so all emails have to be added manually. and it’s just a link, it doesn’t open to a mail service, and you can install ‘contact’ sites, but half the stuff there doesn’t work, cause you haven’t paid for the email option.

And lastly, (there is probably a lot more, but this shit is giving me a headace) then note in the plugins that this plugin is free, BUT to iunstall it you need ‘business plan’ and 330kr ( €44) a month, that is crazy, pure unadulterated insanity!

In short, I paid for a year, and I intend to get my moneys’ worth and just have to make it work. But then – I will spend my time trying to find an alternative that will let me incorperate what I need, and if I have to pay, so be it, but it sure as shit won’t be more than I pay for utilities.

PS: I accidently paid for pro when I just wanted personal, and I did get my money back for the downgrade, but I still wanted to show you this, cause I dont understand it at all. Spend it on what? An upgrade? But if I use that amount to upgrade to the next tier which in this case is business, it’s not enough and I’d have to shell out more money no matter what… and lose my credits? what credits? why? did I pay for them? why do I have them?

If you look closely you can see that the premium plan cost 756kr yearly, and I had 756 credits to upgrade, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you pay 756 towards what cost 1680, you’d be some 924 short.. that is NOT an offer, not even close. that is a lot of money. it’s €124!!

That is a fucking scam if I ever saw one, I mean wordpress is worse than those damn facebook & android games.