Is This In Jest?

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Ben’s Thought Crimes runs an entry slamming MT for their new pay model.

I just can’t decide if this is a joke or not; sadly, I don’t think it is.

Some excerpts:

It’s time for me to ditch MT and find some new blog warez to splurge my thoughts onto the interweb.

This is going to create two major problems for me, firstly my moblog is powered by a perl script which is in turn powered by MT. Secondly, the only reason I don’t get much comment spam now is due to MT-Blacklist, powered by MT as well of course. Arse.

Soooo… thanks Mena and Ben, you have successfully put a downer on my entire day now as i’m going to need to spend actual physical time sorting this out as well as finding a new blogging tool and converting my MT database over to its format. For someone who procrastinates a whole lot and even has it down to a fine art, you have caused a lot of future agony.

So – on one hand – this whole charging model (which I don’t think applies to Ben; free still for single user with three or less blogs) is bad.

And – on the other hand – the tool is so powerful he uses it for his blog, his moblog and his spam is almost nil thanks to an MT plugin (developed by the community, not Six Apart).

Huh?

Two comments, I guess:

  • You’ve put all your eggs in one basket by running all around MT. This is the classic Microsoft model; if you fell for it with MT, well, your choice.

  • You admit this is an incredibly powerful tool. You’ve gotten it for free for years. Is the small price Ben and Mena are asking for their sweat equity too high? I don’t think so. Ben – you’ve written about looking at houses. Why not $100 for this great piece of software? You’re not a student or starving artist, obviously.

I just don’t get all this fuss. MT was a gift and – sure – it would have been great if it remained free. But let’s get real.

On the other hand, right now I’m running off Blogger – completely free, and they host the database. (Which is another set of pros and cons). If they started to charge, I’d have to take a look at my options.

But I would understand it – and not begrudge them – if Blogger did begin to charge.

Free as in beer is a rare deal. Enjoy it while you can.