I’m confused again.

This thought has been swirling round my head for some time so I think the time has come for me to bring it to you to sort out.

If you are reading this, the chances are, you have a blog. Lots of us have a blog. We share our thoughts, our photos, our gardens, our recipes – in short, we share our lives and find connection through that. I like that idea and I enjoy the process. However….

I’ve been finding some of the blogs I have read for years (before I started my blog), have morphed into websites and I don’t read them anymore. Allow me to explain.

It used to be, I could read a post about, for example, a meal someone made for their family. They would talk about their day, why they chose that meal and how their family enjoyed it. Lovely. Simple. A joy to read. Now? Well, now – and this is a common theme: firstly, we get an explanation of what the meal is or the history of it. This happens whether it’s a 3 course affair or a plate of cookies.

Then we get an unnecessary list of equipment needed to make the meal – a bowl, you say? I’ll need a spoon? Well I never. All of these things of course, are underlined in blue which means an Amazon link. Every item, from teaspoon to cooker, is available to buy and bring in some revenue for the author. Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’ve had a go at the Amazon link thing. I failed miserably by the way. But I do find there is a difference between saying to your readers, ‘Hey, I’ve found this thing and it actually works – I think you’ll like it’…to….’come buy EVERYTHING so I can have an online business’. Is it just me? I find it leaves me feeling cold and distant. Instead of seeing a cosy post offering ideas and insight, I see a hard sale.

Then, to add insult to my reading injury, there is another twist. Now the blog is moving. The content they were once happy to share with me is only going to be shared with me, if I pay to read it.

Now, I don’t want to come across as a tight Scot here but I refuse to believe I’m the only person who feels like I’ve gone from feeling like I can ‘follow’ a person, get to know them, enjoy their highs and lows in life – to becoming a customer of theirs. I don’t like it but it has raised a question in my mind:

When does a blog move from being a blog and become a website? When does it stop being a friendly ‘let me share my life with you’, to ‘buy buy buy’? I don’t see any websites moving to become a blog! I know people need to make money – I get that. I also get that people need to do this online – I have a buy me a coffee page too (even though nobody has bought me a coffee yet – feel free to be the first!), so I understand that. It’s just I feel like I’ve been cheated in a way, to be honest. I feel like some people work so hard to build an audience that once they’ve done it, they instantly put put up a ticket office.

Is it just me? Is this making sense to anyone else?

Maybe I’m wrong in my thinking and I would be fine with that but I don’t think I’m the only person who feels like this. I think it’s quite sad that I don’t follow some people anymore – the warmth has gone. I don’t want to get a receipt for reading their posts. I don’t want every second word underlined. Just tell me you have a shop and I’ll go take a look for myself! The hard sell. I think that’s what it is. Whether it’s online or in person, I’ve never taken kindly to the hard sell. In fact, if I want to buy something online, I look for a website. An actual site which has been developed and designed to specifically sell.

I want to be wooed as a customer. I want to be made to feel important, special. Are you the same? Are you happy to pay to subscribe? I say this as someone who has been doing a podcast for 2 years now and not made a single penny from it. I say this as someone with a YouTube channel which for the last year has been developed as a gardening channel. These things take a lot of work. And I mean a lot. So I understand the feeling behind wanting financial return for effort. However…..

The people I’m thinking about when I write this post – and there are quite a few – have several businesses. They constantly tell you how much of an entrepreneur they are. Which leaves me asking the question: when you have so much money coming in from all these different places, can’t you just ‘blog’ again?!