The Parting of the Ways ~ LA PENSINE MUTINE (EN)

Do you know the story behind church bells flying to Rome to receive shrift from the Pope and coming back all chiming to celebrate Christ's resurrection? Well, this is actually a 7th century European tradition when ringing bells from Good Friday to Easter Sunday was prohibited by the church as a mark of mourning. Rattles were used instead. And that is exactly the dreadful noise I've been hearing throughout this weekend. Now, it's my turn to ring the alarm bell — what am I saying! — the gong.

Inside Eklablog's Surprise Egg...

Subscribers to the French newsletter already know. The verdict is in. We've been notified quietly on Eklablog's forum and nowhere else (so those who failed to visit the forums lately won't know it until it's implemented) that from now on commercial ads will be embedded into our blogs to make the publishing service profitable as it is currently in the red. And it won't be a couple of ads but a minimum of three or four per page, the kind that ruin your layout and design and which can't be missed out. The absolute nightmare for internet users.

You don't like it? Then pay! You can't afford it? Too bad.

This is no early April's Fool prank nor a scene depiction from the Godfather or Goodfellas, but the actual decision taken by the management of this independent free French blog-publishing host with its dedicated, efficient technical staff always ready to help users who are liable to suffer as much as we do (Damien, Lid, Stéphanie are just victims like us and I feel sorry for them). So here we are now at the parting of the ways with only two options to choose from: pay or leave

For suffering these annoying ads is naturally out of question.

Work for free and pay for the right to work

Is there anyone, actually outraged at the fact that Eklablog have to find supply of funds to continue to operate, who actually works for free for people they don't know and is willing to pay so these same people can benefit from their work for free and give nothing in return?
A commentator on Eklablog's forum

As an indirect response to the above comment, I'd say only stupid people like me who fight the Matrix any way they can, devoting all their time, energy and limited means at their disposal to contribute to this increasing awareness, while having to put up with full-blast ingratitude, contempt and the lowest of lows from the sheeple whose arrogance equals their ignorance.

My intention is certainly not to spark renewed controversy nor insulting anyone here (60 pages on the forums and as much comments on Facebook have done enough). Neither does the fact that I have a higher perception of reality should entitle me to feel in any way superior. And this is NOT how I feel. Simply, it's a bit like observing a situation from the rooftop of a 100-floor tower while most stand at ground level. The view up there is far more different as you step back and widen your perspective. Therefore, even though all the various arguments may stand their ground at the level of awareness which produced them, they obviously aren't worth spit once you begin digging deeper. For this is nothing but disguised hijacking using the well-rehearsed excuse of “everything has a cost”.

So here is how I view things from the top of my stool. On the one hand, you'll get (as usual) those fortunate enough to get a regular income who will be able to afford a subscription for each of their blogs to be safe and offer their visitors commercial free contents, allowing at the same time this unfair system to continue — the same system that won't fail rewarding them unscrupulously with more extortion at every opportunity. They're well aware of it though, but since they want peace and they can't do anything about it...

On the other hand, you'll get those (the majority) who won't be able to afford it and will therefore have to put up with it. They're likely to lose most of their readership as they grow tired of these intruding ads so omnipresent in our every day life and into our traditional mail boxes, ultimately having the same effect as censorship on the Internet. Or at best, they'll attract sensible and informed readers who already use online ad blockers and therefore won't be affected (provided that advertisers don't find new hacks to bypass ad blockers as some do).

In the end, I'm not sure these commercials imposed on us will suffice bringing our host out of the red for with the resulting decline in attendance and the blocked ads, the generated income might not be as expected — as it happened to many other independent blog publishing services such a Kazeo lately which had to close and many of the blogs it hosted have actually migrated to Eklablog which even designed an import script to facilitate the transfer of their data.

Hijacked

“If your determination to shut your eyes will carry you as far as this, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore, “we have reached a parting of the ways. You must act as you see fit. And I — I shall act as I see fit.”
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling

As I was saying above, there's no way we should have to put up with that even though we're supposed to received a percentage of the generated income in return. I shall then leave. Well, eventually.

Not to worry though, I do not intend to close my account, which would render all my past work and efforts useless. I have always intended this blog to be a browsable source of information which you could access to anytime even in the event where I would no longer be able to publish new contents on a regular basis. But there is absolutely no guarantee that Eklablog won't close soon as a member of the staff mentioned.

And talking about hijacking wasn't an overstatement. This is exactly what it is since we have no other way to export our data onto another platform than copy-pasting them, page by page, losing all internal hyperlinks in the process.

We have no plans of creating an export system. Other services like Overblog (though only for paying customers) or WordPress did it, but unlike these companies we don't have a host of developers and we focus on our own developments. For the record, the import system was an in-house development, so nothing prevents these companies to develop an import system for Eklablog sites. All blogs are scanable, and both RSS feeds and sitemaps are also accessible.
It's up to them to develop or not like we did for Overblog over the last few years.
EklaBlog

Exodus

So as many of my fellow bloggers who did it already, I plan to (ultimately) move to another blog host, but I can only do that progressively as I don't fancy spending days on end copy-pasting data (800 pages for the main blog in French and almost as many for this one). For the time being, nothing will change for you except for those bloody ads you won't even see if you use the proper ad blocking add-ons. As mentioned earlier to newsletter subscribers, I have many posts scheduled for publication in April through the first half of May. I will definitely keep you posted on the new arrangements I may take as soon as they are effective.

In the meantime, this might be the opportunity for those new to this blog to explore its nooks and crannies for, in view of the sudden developments, the Internet might soon become the exclusive bastion of corporations not via open censorship through back-door technology (malware, viruses, spyware, cookies, etc.), commercial harassment, and most specially fatalism.

We are not born fatalists, we become fatalists. Even if it means getting crushed, it is better to fight and keep our souls. For giving up is always giving up the ghost (our soul in French). However, sheeple have no soul. They are cosmic accidents.