DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD

So you thought I was done complaining about this very platform I am on? Nope. Cause today I found something that made me so angry that I had to show you.

Ready for my rant?

I have a personal plan here on WordPress, and it does NOT extend to other blogs you have on the same platform, nor is it connected to your “account” but to each individual blog you have. I have 3 more than this, but in my case it makes no difference if it’s this blog or either of my free ones.

So I wanted to change the layout of another free blog, and you go to ‘themes’ and there is a preset filter like ‘blog’ ‘business’ and the like to filter the use of your blog and ergo what sort of layout you’d need. But there is also a preset filter called ‘free’ and it has always been so on WordPress that some layouts are free, others you could only get with a paid plan. But when you clicked the ‘free’ filter, the damn layouts were free to use with your free blog… but then again, once it was free to use plugins, and free layouts had the option of custm CSS.

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Oh well, so just to show you what I discovered, I took screenshots, my WordPress is in Danish, and so I should tell you that GRATIS means FREE. So this hideous layout is one of the 4 first suggested, both when you open the ‘themes’ and the default page is all layouts, and you click the ‘free‘ filter and then it’s still one of the 5 first. it even says free under it

So let’s click it.

So this is what we see, and it’s honestly pretty confusing – so it’s free but not? So I perhaps thought this blue color gave me a headache, and didn’t want it – I like the ‘orca black’ one. Note the pink button, it DOES say free on it.

But if we click the black, the pink button says ‘unlock style’, and I wonder what that means… so I clicked it, it’s a free theme right?

You guessed it; it is not free, you need to update your subscribtion to get the black version. You’d need a ‘premium subscription’ so for science I clicked the pink button here to upgrade my plan (I realise it’a mash of languages, don’t know why)

And we are sent here.. back to this fucking page – it is my cryptonite, I swear! So again – for the sake of science, and making my point, then I had to try something. I circled the plan I have, which is honestly a shitty deal, and I will unsubscribe from this plan before I have to pay again (and you’d probably see another pissy post from me about that) because it truly is a really terrible plan, I get fuck all besides the domain, which I only have for a year before it cost more? That is how I understand it, and I am sadly not surprised. So I thought to myself… dude, if I pay roughly €4 a month as it is now, then for 30 eurocent more I get premium and a WAY better deal.

I might remind you that you can only pay yearly.

And so I figured, alright let’s see – what happens if I wanted to upgrade my plan… hahahaha

The definition of an upgrade is according to Webster; raise (something) to a higher standard, in particular improve (equipment or machinery) by adding or replacing components.

I honestly laughed. Seriously, why don’t anyone call them out for this scam shit? I mean I paid for ‘personal’ plan for a year roughly in February, this means I have like 10 months left that I paid for.

Back the fuck up.

The Premium plan NEVER cost 756kr, I had to backtrack and see the screenshot I took back a while ago, and there premium cost €96 which is 715kr, so 40kr/€5 off the price they claim it cost before. That is not legal in the EU at least, to claim a false ‘before’ price to make it look like you got a offer. I was actually so hellbent on this that I went and checked the history of the course, and both Euro and Kroner is pretty much the same place now as in February. So…

But that is not the worst.. I mean ‘upgrade’ in my vocabulary means ‘to have something but give extra and get something better’ not to trash what i have to buy a new. If you look at what I AM paying which is 30kr, and the premium plan which is 33 kr a month, one would imagine that it’s the 3kr difference we are talking about, in regards to payment, right? and that ladies and gentlemen is a total of 36kr/€5 should we pay for a year. And as you look at the listing, that is what I atleast would expect to pay plus the 100kr in hidden taxes that I just think is tasteless… why I have never encountered a non commercial site that added taxes to a digital purchase.

My plan now cost 360kr a year, the premium they are trying to sell me is 396kr a year – and 96 minus 60 is… tada! 36. Which means that I am right in assuming that the premium plan is €5 more than the personal.

I have a hard time seeing the logic in their sales methods – cause it’s the destinct impression you get, please tell me it’s not just me. I did not expect that I should pay the 396kr to upgrade. and I am not good at math, but I can’t see how that would be 33kr a month really, because if I paid 396 now to upgrade, I would have paid a total of 756kr which is what the premium subscribtion cost anyways. HOW is that an offer, it isn’t that’s how. You’re not saving anything by upgrading. Actually you are magically paying €5 MORE than you would if you’d just cancel your personal plan, and get a Premium from scratch.

And explain this to me like I am an idiot (cause I am) – But that is hardly truthful advertising. So if a personal sub is 30kr a month amounting to a total of 360kr for a year, and as I said you do pay for a year, you can see it in the screenshot above. Then if you add the 396 to the mix, how would you pay 33kr a month, because you already paid what is the same as 30kr a month, so you’d pay 63kr a month – that is logic and 63 times 12 is…. 756.

I will however check back on this when my personal plan is running out, cause if I can get premium THEN for the same price as right now, that being 396kr, YES then it’s a really good deal. I hardly think that WordPress would allow a loophole like that, but you never know.

My point is that this advertising is a disgrace, there is no saving – and what you get is some themes, fonts and styles because some again are hidden behind the business plan, because reasons. And you get access to the pre installed plugins that is just there to fuck with you and clutter your interface if you don’t use premium.

Some themes you don’t have to upgrade to get – and you can buy them off the site (or upgrade to get them free) – so what would be a fair price for some 7th grade coding? €5 I hear you say? perhaps €7? Oh my sweet summerchild.

400 motherfucking monies… €54! I admit I laughed out really loud. Untill I recalled that custom CSS which was one of the coolest things about WordPress, not counting their plugins and the creative and free market for them (much like google add ons ) is hidden behind a business plan subscribtion.

the fuckers.

I really don’t want to migrate my blog and everything here, but I might actually end up having to do so, by the end of my plan, cause I can’t do shit with this – I can’t even change the theme to something remotely nice, or actually edit said theme with CSS so I could force it nice – or useable.