Today the owners of WordPress have just introduced a new set of pages for use of their clients, including yours truly, which are totally unworkable. The same idiocy that I decry in the article I have just published here about Russia’s computer nerds.
Accordingly, until further notice, I ask that readers move over to my account with Substack: gilbertdoctorow.substack.com where you have the option of free of charge or paid subscriptions. entirely your choice. happily the Substack folks still have their heads screwed on right whereas Word Press have dropped the ball.
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)
Auf Wiedersehen WordPress
Liebe Community,
heute haben die Eigentümer von WordPress gerade eine Reihe neuer Seiten für ihre Kunden vorgestellt, darunter auch für meine Wenigkeit, die völlig unbrauchbar sind. Dieselbe Idiotie, die ich in dem Artikel anprangere, den ich gerade hier über Russlands Computer-Nerds veröffentlicht habe.
Dementsprechend bitte ich die Leser, bis auf Weiteres zu meinem Substack-Konto zu wechseln: gilbertdoctorow.substack.com. Dort haben Sie die Möglichkeit, sich kostenlos oder kostenpflichtig anzumelden. Es ist ganz Ihre Entscheidung. Glücklicherweise haben die Substack-Leute noch alle Tassen im Schrank, während WordPress den Ball fallen gelassen hat.
Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write.
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975).
After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.
From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.
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7 thoughts on “Goodbye wordpress”
Dr Doctorow, I value your insights highly. Unfortunately, your new Substack is requiring me to get their app to read your free subscription, which I believe is another way to collect data. Keep up the good work. You write well and your comments are right on. Many thanks! Ben GraySent from my iPhone
You have to pay indirectly for your “free” subscription. I remember the priceless line from the TV movie “The Brotherhood of the Bell”:
“Two men I loved are dead because I believed a lie, that you can get something for nothing. Well you get nothing for nothing.”
that maybe so for you, Ben, but just tried that sub stack link and it opens just fine and easy on my iPad Air..just trying an iPad or tablet or MacBook with alternative Operating System may lead to your satisfaction, you shall never know if you don’t give it a go…yes, unfortunately smartphones rely on too many apps for this and that and for anything really, oh McCain what a pain, they are coming to take me away haha.
need to retract my words, just experienced that on this big A a free subscription does not mean free access to everything but very little, albeit without downloading additional app..so be it, can do without Armageddon, it’s not exactly information desert on YouTube e.g. just keep on following your interviews published on various platforms such as Judge Neapolitano etc. will do me just fine, less hassle any which way, there must be some way outa here said the joker to the thief.
In my eighties, without formal advanced education, I can nevertheless recognize and relish professional writing…. having worked with old pros here in Canada.
I want to read your book on the Moscow 1990s and beyond because my hectic life then has prevented me following the hardship Russia suffered, this time at the hands of wild west capitalism. Mr. Putin has my admiration and respect since hearing his 2007 Munich address and subsequent conferences. My country has become a puppet just as my even less educated father believed. I know no one with whom to share my conviction without provoking animosity from a brainwashed public….and we used to accuse the Soviets of same. The American hubris is breathtaking, “à en couper le souffle”.
If it is not too much to ask, please keep my address on your mailing list. Except for reading, computer technology is my bane.
WordPress is a mess, I’ll give you that. From my perspective, as a sometimes commenter on a few WP blogs, the comment interface keeps changing in unpredictable and annoying ways. As a person who uses it for your messages, and has to get deeper into WordPress’ workings, it must be even worse. Perhaps it’s following the 4-step path of “enshittification” that the other Doctorow (Cory) described. Maybe an early phase of Step 3, to grab more money or power for the WP corp. How long until it hits Step 4 — “go out of business”?
I will try to keep up with your work on Substack, Gilbert. I’m not keen on signing up for anything, because any info I give to join an online operation can be used for nefarious purposes. Not by you, but by the corps behind it. I reckon that the entire concept of the Internet is going to engage in a Big Picture form of enshittification, but that’s another rant. Thanks for your good work, and if I can’t access it any more, allow me to say how much I have enjoyed your writings for the past couple of years.
Gilbert Doctorow 
Dr Doctorow, I value your insights highly. Unfortunately, your new Substack is requiring me to get their app to read your free subscription, which I believe is another way to collect data. Keep up the good work. You write well and your comments are right on. Many thanks! Ben GraySent from my iPhone
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You have to pay indirectly for your “free” subscription. I remember the priceless line from the TV movie “The Brotherhood of the Bell”:
“Two men I loved are dead because I believed a lie, that you can get something for nothing. Well you get nothing for nothing.”
LikeLike
that maybe so for you, Ben, but just tried that sub stack link and it opens just fine and easy on my iPad Air..just trying an iPad or tablet or MacBook with alternative Operating System may lead to your satisfaction, you shall never know if you don’t give it a go…yes, unfortunately smartphones rely on too many apps for this and that and for anything really, oh McCain what a pain, they are coming to take me away haha.
LikeLike
need to retract my words, just experienced that on this big A a free subscription does not mean free access to everything but very little, albeit without downloading additional app..so be it, can do without Armageddon, it’s not exactly information desert on YouTube e.g. just keep on following your interviews published on various platforms such as Judge Neapolitano etc. will do me just fine, less hassle any which way, there must be some way outa here said the joker to the thief.
LikeLike
In my eighties, without formal advanced education, I can nevertheless recognize and relish professional writing…. having worked with old pros here in Canada.
I want to read your book on the Moscow 1990s and beyond because my hectic life then has prevented me following the hardship Russia suffered, this time at the hands of wild west capitalism. Mr. Putin has my admiration and respect since hearing his 2007 Munich address and subsequent conferences. My country has become a puppet just as my even less educated father believed. I know no one with whom to share my conviction without provoking animosity from a brainwashed public….and we used to accuse the Soviets of same. The American hubris is breathtaking, “à en couper le souffle”.
If it is not too much to ask, please keep my address on your mailing list. Except for reading, computer technology is my bane.
Gratefully,
Anna Beaulieu
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Dear Gilbert,Figure out the changes and stay with your readership. Don’t let minor technological modificati
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WordPress is a mess, I’ll give you that. From my perspective, as a sometimes commenter on a few WP blogs, the comment interface keeps changing in unpredictable and annoying ways. As a person who uses it for your messages, and has to get deeper into WordPress’ workings, it must be even worse. Perhaps it’s following the 4-step path of “enshittification” that the other Doctorow (Cory) described. Maybe an early phase of Step 3, to grab more money or power for the WP corp. How long until it hits Step 4 — “go out of business”?
I will try to keep up with your work on Substack, Gilbert. I’m not keen on signing up for anything, because any info I give to join an online operation can be used for nefarious purposes. Not by you, but by the corps behind it. I reckon that the entire concept of the Internet is going to engage in a Big Picture form of enshittification, but that’s another rant. Thanks for your good work, and if I can’t access it any more, allow me to say how much I have enjoyed your writings for the past couple of years.
LikeLike