I woke up this morning to a couple of signs that the Internet is getting weird. I mean, it was weird before, but this is getting crazy! . . .
First, I got an email from Twitter. I no longer have my @thisbrucesmith handle there, but I still have an account for the Dayton Triangles podcast I created a few years back. I still occasionally respond to tweets and DMs under that account.
The Twitter email informed me that if I want to continue to advertise on the platform — which, I don’t — I must sign up for Twitter Blue. Thus, to be able to pay to advertise on Twitter, I must pay $8 per month or $84 per year. Eighty-four dollars represents more than I paid in advertising in any single year on Twitter.
I’ve concluded that all the money I spent advertising on Twitter was wasted. Therefore, I will not be spending $84 a year for even more nothing than I’m getting now.
I’m certain this is not the end of it. I think it’s only a matter of time before I receive an email saying that I must pay to even be on Twitter — because, ya know, Elon needs the money. When that day comes, I’ll be gone.
Blogger
Then, I received three emails from Google. Apparently, three of the posts on my Blogger account, which I’ve left up for archival purposes, got flagged for having malware. One of these was my post on the song “Sonny the Monster,” which is easily the most popular post on that blog.
Well, I didn’t put any malware there.
The only conclusion I could reach was that someone was able to hack the blog and inject some sort of malicious code into one of the links in the post, or one of the images I had included in the post.
To fix the problem, I edited the “Sonny the Monster” post to remove all images and links and submitted it for review. After review, Google reinstated the post. However, if this happened once, it could happen again. If it does, I’ll simply take down the Blogger site. At this point, I don’t need the hassle, especially since none of these blogs and social media sites seem to be contributing to people finding my music.