Word Press And The Rented Land Fallacy
Do I really need a blog?
In 2019, I started my blog on WordPress and hosted it on Bluehost after an influential blogger told us that having a blog meant we were not on ‘rented land’ but were taking ownership of our business. She sounded intelligent and gave everyone who attended her three-day workshop the spiel on why it was necessary.
This lovely lady gave us all the necessary pep talk I needed to get started and have a place where all my written work stood tall.
I’m from a finance background, and this rented land spiel should have immediately been a load of bull to me. However, I didn’t see it because I was new to blogging and online writing, and I was desperate to establish myself as a writer. So, I was sold on the sales talk.
As time passed, I learned I hated WordPress because it was a pain in the backside. There was so much learning and unnecessary work, which eventually killed my love for writing. I kept my blog alive for a few years because this rented land story stayed with me, and I didn’t know how to proceed with my writing life.
I soon reconnected with Medium (which I learned about from my blog contacts) and found it a perfect place to showcase my writing, earn money, and connect with people at the least cost and effort. Later, I found Subtack to help me do that as well.
For the last two years, I’ve debated abandoning my blog and letting it expire.
It was that time of year when I had to pay the renewal fees in two days.
I’ve been considering the decision because I haven’t been using the blog for some time now, and I've found the expense and effort of maintaining it not worthwhile.
The only reason I had hesitated to cancel it before was that I had put significant effort and money into setting it up and bringing it to the level it was, and cancelling it felt like the whole exercise was futile and a waste of my time, money, and learning.
On further reflection, I realised it wasn’t futile because I learned a lot from it- how to write, what it takes to write, getting comfy with being visible, making an effort for my writing, connecting with others from the writing world, what it takes to do a business in writing, etc.- and I’m taking all these lessons with me. I realised that they would stay with me whether I kept the blog or not.
What I didn’t like about WordPress was the hard work and effort required to do things that I didn't have time for, which Substack and Medium do for me at a lower cost and with less effort.
I was trying to streamline my writing process, making it lean, mean, and straightforward, and only focusing on things that align with me. I was not sure that the blog does.
The blog also represents the resentment I held for not writing for a long time, and I think that in letting go of the blog, I’m letting go of all the past and starting afresh.
But what about WordPress and the Rented Land Theory?
I have been in business and finance for a long time. I know that all this rented land theory is a bunch of B.S. Many businesses operate on rented land (or rented space).
The office space of my actual day job business was owned, but the partner decided to sell it in 2019 for personal reasons, and we moved to a rented space. The business continued as is.
Yes, there was the pain of moving office space — letting customers and colleagues know that the office space has changed, and business stationery needs to be updated with the new address, etc., but nothing else does.
A business needs clients, products, and systems. Once these three things are sorted out, it doesn’t matter; the business will function and grow.
The growth of a business doesn’t necessarily depend on whether the land is rented or owned. Yes, owning a property is an asset, so yes, that’s great because you can sell that asset and make money — but that is another discussion altogether.
Since the pandemic, WFH has become the norm. After the pandemic, we relocated our business to our home because working from home became the norm. As a result, businesses thrived from home, proving that the location, whether rented or owned, has no direct relationship to the business.
Businesses worldwide are reducing costs and overheads by downsizing or relocating their office spaces. They reduce overheads because an unwise investment doesn't add to the bottom line.
Profit is all that matters.
Similarly, this concept of WordPress being an owned asset against Medium or Substack being a rented asset doesn’t make sense. As long as we have our clients (email subscribers), our product and our systems are robust; it does not matter.
So, I decided to cut the umbilical cord of my blog, call it a dead investment, and move on. It was a tough choice because I had put a lot of effort and spent a significant amount of money on it. However, instead of paying for its upkeep every year, I decided it had helped me, done its job, and now I have moved on to greener pastures in Medium and Substack.