Spoiled by its own success
The phrase may be hackneyed, but maybe that’s just because it comes in handy so often. I’ve often said that Austin has been spoiled by its own success.
I wonder if the same thing is happening to Blogger. Let’s be clear: I think Blogger is great. It makes it dead simple — and free — for everyone to start a blog, and in my book, that’s a Good Thing.
The problem is, everyone did, and Blogger has become overwhelmed. People find their archives are evaporating, they’re having trouble posting, etc. I made the switch to Moveable Type a while ago, not because of problems, but because (as I half-jokingly say) my life wasn’t complicated enough. Seriously: I wanted to play around with some of the numerous options that MT offers. A little while ago, Jenny encountered these problems, and so I set her up with a blog inside my own installation of MT. More recently, Dori encountered the same kinds of problems, so I helped her set up her own MT blog (I’m getting good at this). I suspect that the same story has been repeated hundreds of times.
Blogger’s excess of success may be Moveable Type’s success as well. I want Blogger to thrive (I also want it to generate RSS feeds for all its users). I don’t know what needs to happen to keep Blogger running smoothly. The fact that it is free is obviously one of its attractions. You can support it by buying a Blogger Pro subscription, or by buying a Pyrad. Perhaps they need to set up a tip-jar for taking voluntary $5 contributions or something.