What Really Grinds My Gears
Welcome to another “What Really Grinds My Gears” post. As you know, if you have read any of my “What Really Grinds My Gears” in the past these posts are simply a space for me to whine and let some feelings out. They are not that serious. Today, I will be talking about WordPress and what has been annoying me about it. I haven’t whined in a bit so forgive me if I’m all over the place. I get like that when I’m passionate about a topic and I’m out of practice with this sort of post.
WordPress
Don’t get me wrong, I love this platform and am very grateful for it. And I want to start by saying that so that you know my criticisms are coming from a good place. I just want this platform to stop ruining itself so that my favourite bloggers stop abandoning it.
AI
Recently, multiple bloggers I follow have talked about WordPress and AI. In particular about how WP is now selling our content to third parties including those that research and train AI. Obviously, when bloggers found out about this a lot of them were quite angry. Thankfully, we can opt out of this. Check out this post to learn how to opt out and stop WP from sharing your content to third parties.
I’m glad that they have that option but here’s the thing. There are some bloggers who are not tech savvy enough to make these settings. And you need to be on a certain (pretty expensive) plan to be able to do a live chat with HE’s. Those on a free plan can use the forum options but I have heard a lot of complaints about that option. So opting out may not always be as easy as they make it sound.
Plus, some bloggers don’t use WP for a while and only come back every few weeks or months. By then, it may be too late.
Instead of having an option to opt out, in my opinion, they need to have an option to opt in. That way, if you’re okay with your data being used by third parties you can opt in. And if not, you don’t have to do anything.
BTW, shouldn’t we be getting paid if our content/data is being used? I’m pretty sure WP is getting paid so why aren’t we?
Greed
What has SERIOUSLY been grinding my gears about WordPress recently is that they are all about profits now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid. I know companies generally only care about profits and I guess that makes sense. However, what annoys me is when companies go overboard with their greed and destroy everything they have worked so hard to create. And I think that’s what’s happening with WP, at least to an extent.
Have you noticed how they offer less and less features with the plans? You have to be on one of the more expensive plans to really even have any benefits these days. I remember when I first started blogging, the free plan had so many more options and features.
The amount of memory you get on the free plan is crazy, the fact that they take a commission for payments on most of the plans is RIDICULOUS (imagine getting like a $10 tip and WP takes like a 10% commission of that) and not offering live chat with all the plans is just cruel considering how incredibly glitchy this platform is. Yes, all platforms have glitches but you should provide sufficient help so that we can solve them.
In my opinion, none of the paid plans except the Creator Plan (formerly known as the Business Plan) are worth it anymore for the prices they’re charging.
Updates
I had to add this section because I wrote this post before the WordPress updates that changed our Reader. Now, I personally don’t have the biggest issue with it. In general, change makes me uncomfortable. And the glitches caused by the changes are annoying but I think as they usually do the glitches will go away after a while when the dust has settled. But the updates being not that useful for users and mostly being design changes does piss off a lot of bloggers. Especially because there are actual changes we’ve been asking them to make for years that they’ve just ignored.
Another thing that many bloggers complain about is how we don’t get a proper heads-up for the updates. I’m sure they post about the upcoming updates but would it kill them to send out an email? Especially considering most users don’t read their articles.
Happiness Engineers And Customer Care
One of the biggest complains when it comes to WordPress that I have had and have seen other bloggers complain about too is their customer care or rather their lack of it. I remember when I first joined WordPress and their live chat option was available to everyone. Live chats with Happiness Engineers used to be available to all plans but now they’re only available to limited and again quite expensive plans. The free plan in particular makes it pretty hard to get decent help which is sad since a very large number of users on this platform still use the free plan.
And what seriously grinds my gears is that even when you pay for the plans with live support from HE’s it’s still not an option sometimes. I needed to speak to them the other day and got this:
I ended up emailing them about my issue and still haven’t heard anything from them. It’s been more than two days. That really pissed me off. You’re making so much money off us, the least you can do is hire enough HE’s to be able to help us in a timely manner.
For the record, I don’t blame the HE’s for this. They do the best they can in most cases. It’s not their fault they’re overworked and overwhelmed. WP needs to step up and hire enough HE’s that are qualified to fix their many glitches and problems.
Conclusion
I never thought I would say this, but somehow I still have hope for WordPress. Maybe it’s because it’s become such a huge part of my life and I don’t want to admit that it’s slowly killing itself. Or maybe it’s because even with the bad stuff I still see some positive changes. Either way, I think there’s still hope but only if they make major changes to solve the issues we are having on here. In particular, they need to chill with the greedy behaviour. And they need to stop asking the HE’s to keep pushing their overpriced plans onto bloggers that don’t want to upgrade.
I read this post by Renard that’s really interesting. It’s about why a lot of bloggers are becoming more and more dissatisfied with WordPress and where it’s headed. I wanted to share this post to show that a lot of bloggers are connected about the direction WP is headed in. Because it’s giving Tumblr. Another platform that was insanely popular that quickly went downhill.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think WordPress is going downhill or being mismanaged? Do you think WordPress needs to give more importance on their users and what they have to say about the platform? Let me know in the comments below because I would love to hear from you or simply stop by and say hi!
If you enjoyed this post don’t forget to like, follow, share and comment!
Enjoyed this post? Then follow me on social media:
YouTube Twitter Instagram Pinterest LinkedIn
Email me on(guest posts welcome!): insomniacwithanaccent@gmail.com
Leave a Reply