This blog has been down for four days. Sorry about that.<\/p>\n
In case you’re curious about what happened:<\/p>\n
The server (the data-center computer your browser talks to when you use this site) developed a technical problem and stopped showing the site to users. From the diagnostics I could do at my end (I’ve been a programmer for 43 years), it appeared to be a problem with the host company’s server software, not a problem with my website or anything I’m responsible for. I contacted tech support at the host company (GoDaddy) and was astonished because the tech person wasn’t interested in helping to fix the problem. Instead he told me the problem was caused by malware and I would have to pay money for their extra-cost security maintenance package to get it fixed. I thought he was probably wrong or lying to extort money from me, so I asked him questions to find out what his assertions were based on.<\/p>\n
I talked to two tech support people and had similar experiences with both. I’ll summarize the second conversation. I asked how he knew the problem was caused by malware. He ignored the question and asked if I wanted to buy the extra-cost maintenance package. I asked if anybody at GoDaddy had seen the malware. He ignored the question and asked if I wanted to buy the package. I asked if he could please escalate the case to a higher level. He ignored the question and asked if I wanted to buy the package. I asked if I remembered correctly that my existing contract was for “managed” service (which means the company has already agreed to fix most problems). He ignored the question and asked if I wanted to buy the add-on package.<\/p>\n
There were two reasons why I was astonished. (1) These conversations were like something out of a surrealist novel. This is the first time in my life I’ve had conversations like this with tech support. (2) It happened with two different people so apparently they were implementing deliberate company policy. (3) I’ve been a GoDaddy customer for 13 years. Up till now their tech support was superb. <\/p>\n
Coincidentally, the previous day I had looked at the part of their website that sells domains and was astonished to see that the company has become unethical. That part of their site takes advantage of the average customer’s ignorance and fools them into paying much more money than they realize they are spending. One of the AIs told me the FTC (the US government agency that regulates and punishes such behavior) has repeatedly fined GoDaddy for doing things like this, but the company pays the fines and continues the behavior because the fines cost less than the profits. I don’t know if this is true, and AIs confabulate a lot. I was astonished to see and hear these things because the company has always been a little wacky but they never did anything sleazy. The AI informed me that it’s well known in the industry that GoDaddy began changing in this way some years ago. I guess it’s an example of what people are calling “enshittification.”<\/p>\n
While talking to the second guy I decided to cancel my account with GoDaddy and move my sites elsewhere. So next time the guy repeated his question, “Do you want to buy the maintenance package?”, I said, “No. I’ve decided to cancel my account with your company. I’m going to move my sites someplace else.”<\/p>\n
The guy’s reaction was funny but predictable. He thought I was threatening him and immediately started answering the questions he had been ignoring. (I think some of his answers were lies.) But I wasn’t threatening him. There’s no way I’m going to continue doing business with a company that instructs its employees to behave this way.<\/p>\n
I spent the last four days moving my sites (I have about a dozen). I decided to take this opportunity to switch from the traditional way of publishing websites, on a single server at a data center, to the modern CDN method where you have no server. For technical reasons, I had to divide my sites into three categories and publish them in three different ways. CDN is completely new for me so there was a learning curve and that’s why it took four days. Some of the sites are now on Cloudflare Pages. One of the sites (realization.org) is too big for Cloudflare Pages so I put it on Cloudflare R2. This site, freddieyam.com, because it has this WordPress blog, has to stay on traditional shared hosting, so I had to pick a new host company to replace GoDaddy and copy the files to the new server.<\/p>\n
The new CDN tech (used for all my sites except this one) is better than the traditional way of publishing websites on host computers at data centers. It’s faster for users, it’s free for low-traffic websites, it’s more reliable, and it’s more convenient (once it’s set up) for the website’s author.<\/p>\n
When I started publishing websites 27 years ago, I paid $200 per month to lease a server. Over the years the technology got cheaper and the cost went down to about $30 per month at GoDaddy. Now publishing a website with low traffic is free — and faster and more convenient for the author. (Domain names are a separate expense that still must be paid.)<\/p>\n
For any new website, I think the old method is obsolete. I guess it will hang around for a while because people don’t know about the new tech. Things like WordPress don’t work with the new method — WordPress is also obsolete, I guess — but things like Substack work fine. I’m sticking with the old method for this site because I don’t want to lose the 1100+ WordPress comments that have accumulated in this blog.<\/p>\n
I moved this site to the cheapest host company I could find. It’s called NameCheap, not a name I find reassuring. So far it looks pretty good. If it doesn’t work out I’ll move the site again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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