Jack Baty on, well, everything:

It’s ridiculous. I go through this phase regularly, but this time it feels particularly bad. I want fewer things that can be adjusted. I love adjusting things. I love dials and options and depth in software, but it’s making me crazy and not helping me actually get anything done. I don’t think I’ve finished a decent-sized project in months. I’ve certainly spent enough time doing “work about work” though.

My head hurts from nodding along the entire way.

Read this to get an idea of why Westbrook is my favorite basketball player not named Kobe.

Russell Westbrook is a force of nature. Westbrook has wreaked havoc on opposing NBA teams, piling up 17 triple-doubles so far this season, which ties Magic Johnson’s 1988-89 season for the most in the last 33 years.

Oh yeah, and he added his 18th triple double of the season last night against the Lakers. In the first half. Force of nature is the only phrase that even comes close to describing this guy.

Eddie is a smart guy, but boy is he off the mark here.

What if developers raise prices not out of greed and malice but out of necessity? And what if they don’t deserve to be spit on for asking to be paid? Like us?

Of course developers are regular people. What else would they be? No one is annoyed at Smile for raising their prices. It's the unnecessary subscription pricing that did the trick.

Eddie ditched SquareSpace¹ and moved to Jekyll:

Jekyll is not the first static platform I’ve attempted to move to, and I’m grateful my previous attempts to move to other static frameworks failed because I can’t think of a better place to be than Jekyll now—although many, many good static site options now exist.

It's no secret that I prefer static to dynamic sites. A lot. I chose Pelican, but Jekyll was a close second choice.

TJ Luoma on the TextExpander screw-up:

To be clear, I’m not saying that the Smile folks are bad, evil, mean, money-grubbers or anything like that. What I am saying is this: as an experienced power-user of your software, I do not have the slightest clue why you decided to make this service mandatory when it seems to offer very little for individual users, and I have no idea why I should pay a monthly fee for something that has worked fine before. What problem does TextExpander 6 solve for me?

Exactly. I know what's in it for Smile. I have no idea what's in it for me.

I've read a few articles today gushing about how great the new TextExpander update is.

Strangely, Smile sponsors these sites directly, or podcasts that the site owners host. So strange.

Go ahead and add TextExpander to the list of subscription services.

Smile is simultaneously moving TextExpander to a subscription pricing model, a development that I expect will not be popular with some long-time customers.

As someone who only paid $20 for the TextExpander 5 OS X update to get rid of the infuriating "UPGRADE ME NOW" pop up that they introduced in a free update to the perfectly functional version that I had...

Smile Software can consume a bag of phallic-shaped objects.

On the local news just now:

Sources: Train crash a fatal mistake.

Yes, they usually are. I am grateful that we have the news to point it out, though.

App developers and service providers love monthly subscriptions. It's much better to get a recurring payment each and every month rather than only getting paid on day one. It's better for the developers and service providers - but how about you?

A lot of smart people are getting really worn out with subscriptions.

Gabe isn't a fan:

But, but, it’s just $3 per month. That’s the same as a cup of derp, derp, derp… I have subscription exhaustion too

Neither is Julia:

It’s that time of year when I vigorously prune my list of software/service subscriptions & get pissed for letting it getting so out of hand.

Or Phillip:

Because if you wanna hook people into a subscription, you better justify that, got it, YNAB?

Here are a few services that offer subscriptions:

This is a very incomplete list of the sites & service that offer monthly subscriptions. This list could be so much longer. Remember, I only included one "single site" subscription. There are dozens of popular ones, and probably hundreds or thousands to choose from. I also only included iCloud storage for one person. A family could spend $10-$20 / mo on iCloud storage without breaking a sweat.

Just about every one of these subscriptions, by itself, seems perfectly reasonable. Who can really get mad about paying four bucks a month for iCloud storage? Or $5 / month for Club MacStories? Isn't $5 / month for 1Password for Familes a great deal?

Sure. Individually, they do make sense.

Add them all up, and all of a sudden what was a cup of coffee looks more like an additional utility bill. I don't need another utility bill in my life.

Track your subscriptions. Keep a text file, an Excel spreadsheet, or write it on dead trees. Just keep an eye on your list to make sure it doesn't get out of control. That reminds me – I need to add a recurring item to 2Do.

Note: I wrote about subscription software last year. I hated it then, too.

Using Drafts As A Main Text Editor

Sometimes, I get an idea for a post (like this one), write down my thoughts, and then send it elsewhere for long-form writing. But is that really necessary? Do I really need to move these items out of Drafts? Why couldn’t I write everything I want within the app from start to finish? The answer is simple: I can do everything here. And maybe what you need to do to use Drafts as a main text editor is set things up for how you need it to work now and in the future.

It'll take you a little time, but if you use Drafts at all, read this.