Public Policy Conjectures

This is the first in a long and wide ranging series of postings about IT from the point of view of an expert user—me.  

Writings about IT are always written by an IT expert, a widgets and gadgets man.  At long last there will be a series written by someone who can drive a car, organise a family holiday and even a fun event in a brewery, but can only use a computer like an ordinary chap. 

I love complaining, as here—but I’ll offer a first stab at solutions in the next posting.  So forgive and enjoy this first posting of unadulterated complaint.  But even I can’t believe what I am saying here is true. How can it possibly be true? 

Blogs

I’m having real trouble publishing these essays.  It should be easy after 30 years of IT and the Internet.  

Why is it so difficult?

If I lived in England in the 1630’s and wanted to publish a scurrilous political tract, (when censorship was not operating well), I’d write it by hand on a bit of paper, take it to a printer and he’d print me 100 copies for a florin; and I’d get it round my friends and on to friends of friends etc.  I’d even get a copy quickly across the Channel with a fair wind, via the Baptist network. 

Now I can’t do that. 

Whilst writing it couldn’t be better and easier—well it would be better if they stripped out all the dialogue boxes and fancy bits that plague me, as I think and write faster than the computer can keep up.  But despite its over-kill, I certainly wouldn’t be able to write without the computer.  I wouldn’t be able to write this. 

But that’s not the end of the story.

After that, I have a huge job to find a publisher and an agent and write a summary or whatever —so I consider a blog: Substack, Reddit, WordPress, a blog host.  All these have complex offerings, most of which want you to make lots of money from selling cakes displayed in photos with nice rounded corners.  And they worry you with lots of security and tell you not to write too much or no-one will read it — and use some key words called SQW.

I’ve now lighted on WordPress and am looking at lengthy Youtube Tutorials which don’t structure the tutorial properly, don’t explain fundamentally what they are doing once you get beyond paying some money and getting a domain name and hosting server.  Immediately after that, they dive deep and without breathing apparatus into cake recipes using widgets and gadgets. 

All I want to do is post essays—plain text—for which I seem only to need a home page, contact page and an essay posting page in date order.  I don’t need photos of my essays, nor of me, nor of my dog; and if the essay is about prime ministers, nor do I need a photo of the front door of No 10 Downing Street, with or without the cat. 

After 3 months of trying to understand the garish offerings, more time trawling tutorials, 10 days trying to do the simple set up I’m assured exists somewhere in the haystack: even after that and the help of a retired IT expert who is equally baffled, I give up and pay today’s IT expert to set it up for me. 

Why can’t I just do what they did 400 years ago and just write it and send it, properly stamped, to  the internet, and get Google to tell everyone it’s there?  

Whether or not anyone bothers to read it was a problem in the 17th century.  That’s no different now. 

After 30 years of Internet, we’ve trillions of £ and $ of computers and widgets and gadgets men all over the world, and yet I can’t do a simple thing like this!  Why? And “Why again?”

Why is IT so hard for the ordinary bloke?  

© Philip Morgan 2026  Public Policy Conjectures    All rights reserved