Removing the Paywall

Looking for a new home

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world seems to be falling apart a tiny bit.

And that, rather than the fact that I haven’t been able to bring myself to write anything since October, is the real reason I’ve decided to remove the paywall on this site.

I feel like I’m looking for my digital home. Back in days of yore, my blog was my home; it was the centre of my digital life, and everything else branched off from there. But the pandemic and cancer changed that, and try as I might, I couldn’t get comfortable there again (The blog still exists if you fancy looking at the archives).

I moved my digital home to Instagram, specifically to stories for my ramblings and updates. But I was always very aware it was just a rental. I didn’t want to have to fight the algorithm for views from people who might have actually wanted to see my stuff if they knew it was there. It’s exhausting trying to keep up, and the primarily visual nature of it never really suited me; at heart, I’m a writer. But still, I made it the centre of my digital life, checking in, trying new things, telling everyone about this place, which I thought could be a little side hustle to make a bit of money and keep myself in turmeric capsules and hand cream. I never really felt comfortable with it, though; deciding to keep bits of writing only for people who paid gave me the ick, so in the end, I didn’t.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having a lot of misgivings about the amount of power we give over our means of communication to a very small number of extremely rich men, who are, ultimately, kind of assholes.

There’s the whole “Trump saved TikTok” debacle - Ick. Zuckerberg ditching fact-checkers as apparently comparing women to household objects and denying the existence of Trans people is “political” - Ick. Elon Musk and X/Twitter drove me away a long time ago because - Ick.

This, among a lot of other small, personal incidents, made me really aware of the fact that we are just tenants. All those warnings from people back in my blogging days about making sure you kept an email list and had your own website rather than relying on socials started to feel a lot less paranoid.

I’m not going to be shutting down my Facebook and Insta, but I am trying to make sure I have other places to find my people that THOSE guys don’t control. I have an account on BlueSky and one on TikTok (even though that’s a whole other controversy right now), and I have this place. I know I don’t “own” any of these places either, but at least the people who do own them aren’t all in the same club, and hey, if the worst comes to the worst, I do still own my old blog.

So I’ve taken the Paywall down, because I’m not in a place where I’m monetising my online life in that way right now, and I just want a place where I can share my story. I hope sometimes people find it helpful, scrap that, I know they do, because they tell me. That’s what I’ve always loved about all my online spaces, connection and communication and a sense of community.

So, hi! Hi to subscribers who were previously free or paid (if you were paid, you’ll have a refund for part of your subscription). Hi to new subscribers, or those of you just swinging by. I hope you’ll swing by again, and that I’ll have something interesting to share.

I’m starting 2025 still in remission from Multiple Myeloma, training for the London Marathon, and with a sprained ankle because I fell over on my skates. It’s very cold, and it feels VERY January, but brighter days are coming. What’s important is that we all look out for each other.