
Google, nobody asked for a new Blogger interface - classichasclass
https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2020/08/google-nobody-asked-for-new-blogger.html
======
dwheeler
If you want to be in control, the solution has always been the same: own your
own domain, and post there.

If you post on someone else's domain, then it's their content, and they're in
control of it, not you. No matter what is claimed otherwise.

Yes, it's harder. Getting visibility is also harder. It's still the only
solution if you want to be in control.

It's okay to pay someone to run the blogging platform, etc., as long as you
own the domain name & can decide what it points to. You can then switch
providers, switch systems you use, or whatever you want to do. But if you
don't control the domain name, someone else is in control.

~~~
chongli
This issue is why I’m skeptical of SaaS in general.

I look at software as a solution to a problem. When I have a problem and
software solves it, I’m happy. The better the software, the more thoroughly it
solves my problem without creating new problems for me (by being annoying or
inefficient). The best software seems to hit a sweet spot with the right set
of features targeted at solving a particular problem or small class of
problems with minimal fuss.

Really good software becomes extremely difficult to improve on. But services
can’t deal with just hitting the sweet spot and calling it a day. They need to
grow, which means they need to evolve. The constant cash flow seems to burn a
hole in the manager’s pocket. Eventually they cross a threshold and exit the
sweet spot. Maybe they release a major version with an awful new UI. Like a TV
series which has gone on too long, they jump the shark [1].

Perhaps this problem of SaaS may be analogous to network decay [2], though the
latter is more gradual.

[1]
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark)

[2]
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay)

~~~
open-source-ux
_" This issue is why I’m skeptical of SaaS in general"_

SaaS is eating the B2B (Busines to Business) software market. Companies small
or large are much happier not having to manage servers, installation, updates
and security.

I don't particularly like SaaS either, but what is the alternative? It is
_impossible_ to self-install a web app on a server in a way that is _easy and
simple to do_ particularly for non-techical users. Until that happens (which
may be never), SaaS will continue to grow and dominate the B2B market.

Imagine if installing a web server app was as easy as installing a desktop
app. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers. My impression is
that developers think it's a non-issue or have simply never thought about it.

(And no, before someone mentions it, Docker, Sandstorm, Cloudron, command-line
installations etc are not easy-to-use options for non-technical users.)

~~~
yandie
You didn't mention other things security, scaling, keeping the service up,
backing up. Securing a web application is HARD.

~~~
jfengel
Very hard. Terrifying to me as a professional developer. I can't keep up with
all of the possible failure paths. The more of that I can foist off on
somebody who does it full time, the better. Then I can focus on my application
domain rather than the basic mechanics of keeping the thing up and secure.

------
cblconfederate
Ooh yes is so blatantly obvious that this is some developers' vanity project
that he enthusiastically promoted in order to get his own promotion. Really
bad redesign for no reason at all, ending in a frankenstein solution of mix of
old and new interface. Great developers like this should stay in google
forever.

Similar thing with paypal's redesign

~~~
tspike
> just some developers' vanity project

I think you underestimate the number of people involved in these kinds of
projects.. guarantee there were multiple product managers, a host of UX
designers, engineering managers, and devs. It's much harder for a developer to
get a thing like this through than a product person.

~~~
srean
A problem is that people have to justify their employment, so they have to do
'something' even if that 'something' does not improve things. The other option
they have is to move to another division/project. Moving may not always be an
option.

------
8note
I imagine you don't have to worry about it for very long; next they'll
announce that it's shutting down and that you can use the YouTube community
tab instead

~~~
istorical
they will let you know you have a month to transfer your blog to YouTube
community, and at the end of that period if you haven't transitioned (a
process whose ramifications in terms of privacy and how it affects your
ability to keep separate identities on different platforms are entirely
opaque) your entire blog will be deleted and lost forever.

------
troyjfarrell
Sandstorm has accidentally solved the problem of rapid change by not having
enough developers to continually update the available applications, which
include Wordpress. You can also ignore updates.

Thankfully, the architecture of Sandstorm turns many types of vulnerabilities
in the installed applications into non-events. This means that the lack of
updates is not so alarming.

[https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non-
event...](https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non-
events/#wordpress)

~~~
Santosh83
Good to hear Sandstorm is still alive! It is precisely the kind of thing that
has some chance of making self hosted popular among the wider public, instead
of ever shrinking patches maintained by die-hard enthusiasts inside a sea of
corporate silos.

------
est
Ok nobody asked but what about the guy at Blogger team who's role is to make
up bullshit OKRs and get promotions?

~~~
V-eHGsd_
spoken like someone who remembers the kennedy announcement.

~~~
dredmorbius
And for those who may not, the 2011 "Kennedy" UI initiative at Google.

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-
redesign-h...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-how-
larry-page-engineered-beautiful-revolution)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620566)

~~~
cromwellian
These kind of announcements probably happen all the time within Apple, why do
people rage when someone else tries to fix UI inconsistency in L&F and
behavior, but Apple does it by changing what you're use to without asking you,
and nary a peep?

At least other companies sometimes let you keep the old theme/skin for awhile.

~~~
pessimizer
Why when someone complains about something Google did does somebody always
reply "nobody complains when Apple does the same thing," and when someone
complains about something Apple did somebody always replies "nobody complains
when Google does the same thing?"

~~~
toyg
The iOS / Android fanboi schism is a plague. It replicates the worst of
2-party politics, put at the service of the wealthiest corporations on the
planet.

------
michaelsitver
I'm shocked Blogger made any changes at all. Always assumed they were in
maintainance mode. I'm really curious how many people are still on the blogger
team at Google.

~~~
frouge
They had to give them some work

------
susam
> I'm probably the last person on earth to do so, but I write my posts in raw
> HTML.

Although I don't use Blogger/Blogspot anymore and I render my blog using a
static site generator [1], I too write my posts in raw HTML [2].

In the past, the differences in how various tools interpret and render some of
the corner case scenarios like nested lists, code blocks or blockquotes nested
within lists, etc. caused issues in porting my Markdown files from one system
to another. Granted, there is CommonMark now and I think it is a pretty good
specification but it is not a standard like HTML5 is. I prefer standards, so
that I know with a reasonable degree of confidence that what I write now would
look the same 10 years from now.

[1]:
[https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite](https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite)
(Disclosure: My wife developed this project)

[2]:
[https://github.com/susam/susam.in/tree/master/content/blog](https://github.com/susam/susam.in/tree/master/content/blog)

------
ezoe
These days, I am thinking that relying heavily on a particular Blog service
has a risk. Those services will be eventually gone. Blogger is no exception.
Like all the services Google purchased and abandoned in the past. I don't want
to risk losing all the writings I intended to publish on the Internet.

But, blogging is not that important enough for me to set up a my very own
dedicated web server.

So, these days, I'm simply using GitHub Pages for the blog. I realized all I
need is to host static HTML files. I can write locally with my favourite text
editor, git commit & git push to publish it. No need to use web browser at
all.

Even if GitHub is gone, I have entire data on my multiple storages I owned and
rented.

I can do this with other Blog services but I have to automate the web browser
operation to copy&paste the writings for each blog services, which is not
necessary if I simply use GitHub.

~~~
Shared404
> But, blogging is not that important enough for me to set up a my very own
> dedicated web server.

If for some reason you wind up wanting to move off of GitHub, I've found
Linodes bottom tier to be great for hosting a small static site. You do have
to configure the webserver yourself of course, but it's a step down in
complexity from self hosting.

------
LordAtlas
Rather ironic that the post mentions things like accessibility while using a
blog layout that is not responsive on mobiles, and looks like crap with tiny,
unreadable text on large screens.

------
pier25
I thought Google had completely abandoned Blogger. Is there a reason they are
investing in it again?

~~~
ma2rten
The same reason that some other Google products have been redesigned recently:
They used GWT and GWT has been deprecated.

~~~
pier25
When they launched the last Gmail redesign in 2018 I used an extension to
check what they had used and it showed up Vue:

[https://twitter.com/PierB/status/989630991051476992](https://twitter.com/PierB/status/989630991051476992)

It doesn't show up anymore so they probably obfuscated it.

~~~
ma2rten
Gmail uses Wiz. The extension was probably misclassifying it.

[https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/958696304149868545](https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/958696304149868545)

------
motohagiography
I'm trying to think of internet brands that have successfully reinvented
themselves, like analogous to an alternate universe where Myspace relaunches
and becomes a thing. Maybe blogspot is a going concern, but it seems like the
Altavista of internet publishing to me. Winner may take all in network effect
companies, but does it mean you also only get one shot, or is there a "retro"
effect online too?

To adapt another adage, users don't leave products, they leave communities.
The idea of starting a new blog on blogspot doesn't really register for me
anymore. Or maybe I'm out of touch?

------
mark_l_watson
I just checked out the new UI for creating and editing new blogger articles.
It seems OK to me, but I understand the author’s complaints.

I have switched 3 or 4 times between using blogger and using a static site
generator. This is easy to do because tools like Jekyll easily import blogger
data dumps. Moving back from a static generated blog to blogger is a few copy
and paste operations.

I like having everything in my domain, but using blogger is convenient. Right
now, I am using blogger again, but periodically generate a static blog that I
also link on my domain as a backup.

------
jagtesh
Someone thought of a way to keep their job at Google.

Seriously though, I'd love to see some stats on Blogger traffic today and what
level of ad revenue it contribute to Google. It's got to be a cash cow for
them to keep it running for so long.

------
brian_herman
It seems like google likes to engineer problems without considering the
solution they already have in place. A handful of messaging platforms... etc.

------
SkyLinx
Shameless plug: if you just need a simple blog, check out DynaBlogger
([https://www.dynablogger.com](https://www.dynablogger.com)), a new blogging
platform I just launched

------
app4soft
> _Google, nobody asked for a new Blogger interface_

... and new _Google Sites_ interface too.[0]

[0]
[https://twitter.com/P_Nezzie/status/1292457186971529217](https://twitter.com/P_Nezzie/status/1292457186971529217)

------
hrishios
This is google being google. Blogger underwent a refresh maybe about 5 years
ago, and that too was trending in this (worse) direction.

------
xvyyre
Wait, people are still using blogspot?

~~~
toyg
I have a blog there since 2002. I’ve run personal websites before and after,
which have long fallen to my laziness for sysadmin tasks. Blogger alwyas
works, costs me nothing, doesn’t try too hard, doesn’t go down if traffic
surges, and gives me significant google-juice.

------
natch
And it puts full justify on comments... eww.

------
djohnston
gotta get that promo tho

------
justicezyx
Google engineers wanted impact to get promoted, consider this a natural result
(or whatever other rationale that does not put user satisfaction as the first
criteria)

~~~
dodobirdlord
Someone mentioned elsewhere in the thread, it was updated because it depended
on obsolete libraries. Presumably the new libraries made the new design more
straightforward to implement than attempting to reproduce the existing one.

~~~
mikro2nd
What, exactly, was "obsolete" about those libraries. Did the code stop
executing? Were they written in languages whose compilers/interpreters stopped
functioning? Or were there simply newer, shinier toys to play with?

~~~
coliveira
If it was written in python, it can really stop working. Most companies are
transitioning to Python3.

~~~
coliveira
If you think I'm joking, there are huge companies that have already declared
Python2 as non-supported software, so if you have any software written in
Python2 you have to either rewrite or stop using it.

