Friday, September 22, 2017

The Rising Cost of Blogging Weekly Link Round-Up




I've been blogging for almost ten years now. I was planning to have some sort of celebration next June. Now I don't know if I will. Back in 2008, blogging was easy. I signed up at Blogger, and away I went. Then I decided that I wanted my own domain name so people could find my blog easier. That was a mere $10 a year. Nowhere close to breaking the bank.

It all started to change this year. If I believed in conspiracy theories, I'd be tempted to think that the money grubbing element in the world has it in for bloggers.

First, it was Photobucket holding large sections of my blog graphics hostage. Instead of doing what they'd been doing for free year after year, they now wanted $400 per year to do it. I tried several free places, but I could not get the coding to work on my blog, so I ponied up the $400 and chalked it up as an early annual Christmas present to myself.

Now Google has informed me that, if I don't have a security certificate, every time someone who uses Chrome as a browser is going to get some sort of "Danger, Will Robinson!" warning when they visit Kittling: Books. Used to be, hardly anyone used Chrome as a browser. Now well over 50% of folks use it. That's a lot of people getting warnings when they land on my blog. Started doing my research, and... cost of a security certificate: $400 per year. (Who decided upon $400 as the go-to gouge figure?)

I'm being held over a barrel again, and I am angry. I'm also heartsick because, if I now have to budget for these two annual fees, I know that there are going to be others. It would be different if I had a hugely popular blog that received tens of thousands of hits per day, but I don't. It would be different if I received some sort of income from Kittling: Books, but I don't. This is a labor of love, plain and simple. I'm being forced to make a decision. Do I want to keep on blogging with the ever-rising costs of it? Yes, I do, but... I'd also like to have money for other things in my life that I enjoy.

I'm going to mosey out to the corral, and get these links ready for you. I need to do some pondering and soul-searching.

Head 'em up! Mooooove 'em out!



►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄
  • How French cuisine took over the world (and the early cookbook industry). 
  • The art Monet owned. (One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen is one of Monet's water lily paintings.)
  • The transformation of the American shopping mall
  • The damage from Hurricane Irma can be seen from space. 
  • The roots of computer code lie in telegraph code. Makes sense when you think about it.
  • Before she was an etiquette authority, Emily Post was a road warrior.
  • Kayla Rae Whitaker writes about hanging out with Pennywise and her grandmother's ghost.
  • Balzac tried to buy a waistcoat for every day of the year (and other revelations of Parisian fashion).

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
  • Oysters can get herpes, and it's killing them. 
  • To save Australia's ecosystem, ecologists say eat kangaroos
  • Hemingway's six-toed cats rode out Hurricane Irma in Key West, Florida. 
  • When disaster strikes, the zoo must go on.

►I ♥ Lists◄


That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!


13 comments:

  1. That's terrible about the charges. Maybe it's time to go back to a free platform? And take your own photos if you want images?

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    1. Who's to say that if I give up my domain name and go back to the freebie that they won't change their minds and start charging fees there, too?

      I do take a lot of my own photos, it's how the coding works on several sections of my blog that incurs the fees.

      Delete
  2. You know, Cathy, I know just what you mean! I'm with Wordpress, and there are fees there, too. If you want a no-ads blog (which I do) there's a fee. If you want to upload video (which I occasionally do) there's a fee. It's getting really annoying. I think I'll work off my irritation and go explore that Egyptian tomb.

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    1. Good idea. But I have a feeling that those fees aren't $400 a pop!

      Delete
  3. Murder Is Everywhere seems to have got away scot-free on blogspot so far. But maybe that will change too. So many people will miss your blogs if you stop them...there must be another way!
    For what it's worth, I accessed your site from Chrome and there wasn't a peep about security.

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    1. It might be because you're still on the free platform and I have a custom domain name through Google. I don't know.

      The changes I'm talking about with Chrome will happen next month, so you won't be seeing warnings for a few days yet.

      Delete
  4. I use Chrome and have had nothing about security pop up. I hear you about the fees. I've been using PicMonkey for years and now they want to charge me. Nope!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. One of the things I learned about third party hosting of graphics was that a lot of the places that are still free are owned by Photobucket, so you can almost guarantee that they won't stay free.

      The security pop-ups on Chrome won't happen until next month.

      Delete
  5. I do feel your pain re the cost...it seems to happen with everything though not just blogging. I refer to it as the drug dealer syndrome. Drug dealers often give away drugs for free to likely punters in the hope those punters will get hooked then will pay whatever it takes to get their hands on the drugs.

    For what it's worth as a matter of comparison I pay about $90US a year for my two domain names (2 blogs) and for my blogs to be ad free on Wordpress - that fee has been pretty stable for the past several years. I think our security certificates are going to be taken care of by Wordpress because I pay the premium fee already but I'm not 100% sure - some of their wording is a bit vague. Alternatively your domain name company might have a cheaper option to manage this (Hover.com does so I believe). I do not use photographs to the extent that you do (I use CC images available for non-commercial re-use on those occasions when I use other people's photos.

    Good luck with it all

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    1. Thanks, Bernadette. My domain name company is Google, the same one that's insisting upon the security certificate.

      Delete
  6. That is just awful! I knew all this free stuff was going to end up costing users of the Internet.

    Maybe there is a way somehow using a newer system that doesn't charge high fees yet? You've probably investigated all possibilities.

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    1. "Yet" can be one of my least favorite words in the English language. It would be just my luck to go through the labors of Hercules to move this blog to a different system that would then start charging its own smorgasbord of fees.

      Delete
  7. Yes, true. If I hear of any solutions, will let you know.

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