Today I happened to come across an introduction that said this blog platform is currently in beta testing, so it is unlimited in space and free to try. But once the official version is released, it may become a paid service.
This policy reminds me of the past platform called "Jianshu". When Jianshu first came out, the interface was simple and beautiful, and the content was good. The user experience was also great. However, later on, probably due to various profit reasons, it became filled with advertisements and became very ugly. So, besides using Jianshu at the beginning, I haven't used it since, and I hardly ever open that website now.
Zhihu is also similar. When it first started, the answers on Zhihu were all wonderful. About 10 years ago when I was in college, I would often spend 4-5 hours on Zhihu and still not get enough. Time flies, and Zhihu has changed a lot now. I can tolerate more ads because some of them are just recommendations for good products. What makes me uncomfortable about Zhihu now is that the questions are becoming more and more suggestive, with all kinds of ambiguous questions and a flood of beautiful girl pictures. Sometimes I can't help but feel emotional, are all Chinese software platforms going to end up as hookup platforms?
Even Weibo, although I don't have many original Weibo posts, I used to follow many university professors who would share a lot of papers and thoughts every day, and I benefited a lot from reading them. But I don't know when it started, Weibo has become a place without substance, filled with entertainment news or gender conflicts, or various funny short videos. Now I don't really look at Weibo anymore, and I have shifted my focus on cutting-edge technology and papers to Twitter. Compared to the old Weibo, there are more people on Twitter, and many new papers are actively shared by the authors themselves. The experience has even improved to some extent.
So, today when I saw the statement from xlog, I suddenly became hesitant. I originally thought this was a platform that I could use for a long time, to avoid the trouble of maintaining my own blog system. But now it seems that I should observe more and make contingency plans if things don't go well.