Rant 248 4/9/12 Subject: Compulsory Upgrades

Rant number 248

Blogger has had a vulture circling me for quite a while. Quite a while indeed.

They've been working hard on a nice new interface for ages - and they've been suggesting since about May, that I should feel compelled to upgrade - because its brilliant and all that.

The thing is, I'm not one to fix anything that isn't broken - and I feel the same about the world around me. I'm also, for a man who is pretty technically astute, a reasonably reluctant adopter of new things - if I already have something to do that job.

I had a quick flick through the 'new' blogger interface back in May when they told me how fantastic it was going to be. It wasn't really very special, the new features didn't really seem to apply to me and it took me 10 minutes to find something I can usually find in an instant.

So why would I bother upgrading?

Only one reason. Because they are now going to imminently force me.

Great.

Now don't get me wrong. The tools are free, I'm grateful for that, I really am. If you are giving somebody something for free and you want to change what you offer, it's up to you.
I just don't understand why they can't keep the 'legacy' version for people who are happy with what they've already got.

It's like Facebook and their various iterations: most notably bloody timeline. They wanted you on timeline  badly! Really really badly! If you are on Facebook, you'll have noticed.

Firstly they asked: Would you like to update to timeline now? No... OK

Then they tricked you: You've signed into an application, that means you're going to have to have timeline.

Then they forced you: You've avoided the other tricks, we're going to put you on the fucker now anyway.

I can't say I much like it, but it's free - so what the hell. Why force you though? Probably something to doing with selling your personal information to martians or something.

They do it with iTunes and even your TV's or games consoles these days. It's a case of 'If you want to continue using it, you will have to upgrade!'

What a pain!

Rant over.