I thought I’d lamented this before, but Microsoft is killing Microsoft Publisher, and because nowadays it’s all by subscription, when they kill it, it will go away and you won’t be able to access your desktop publishing files.
As you might recall, gentle reader, I have been a Microsoft Publisher user for over thirty years. I first ran it on a Windows 3.11 desktop and the St. Louis Artesian transitioned from rubber-cement-at-Kinko’s layout to desktop publishing (remember, briefly, how that was a business type and/or career possibility for about five years in the 1990s until those meddling kids in Illinois built Netscape Navigator?). I also laid out my second chapbook, Deep Blue Shadows on that old Packard Bell. When I was working on a government contract in about 2019 (just or recently in my recounting), I was working with a bunch of ex-military types on a group project in some training exercise or another, and when it came time to build some visual thing, I cracked open Microsoft Publisher instead of PowerPoint–how gauche and unprofessional! And although I’ve only used it for Christmas letters and Winter Reading Challenge forms in recent years, they’re taking away my ability to use something for which I’ve paid, many times, and sorta orphaning decades’ worth of work.
But I’m not here specifically to lament this particular loss or to reiterate that I’m about one Microsoft Account debacle away from quitting Microsoft for good (after over 35 years starting with MS-DOS)–a recent Windows update, probably designed to “improve” my experience by hoovering up more of my information for Microsoft’s purposes, required me to sign into my Office subscription–which, fortunately, worked (and I’m ignoring the email about my Microsoft Entra account needing a new something something different form of multifactor authentication?–I’ll get locked out of that bridge when I get there and onto my Linux box ricky-tick).
No, I am here to wordily say that professional communications are eroding trust in companies and institutions.
“Microsoft is committed to improving your Microsoft 365 subscription.” No, it is not. It is dedicated to increasing profitability in indulging my usage. That’s why we went from building software I could install and use, paying for it once unless you put more features into it and improved it so I would want to buy a newer version or so I would stick with it and buy a later version on later computers. No, instead, Microsoft forced me into a recurring revenue “subscription” model (coming soon, mayhap, to the OS itself, if Microsoft thought it could get away with it). And now it’s “improving” my subscription by taking something away and orphaning my data. No, Microsoft, we know that the improvement is all for you, none for me.
Like when Sam’s Club removed most of the checkout stands “for your convenience.”
The constant drive of the professional communicators and business people to couch the changing terms of their existence to improve their profitability and to meet internal metrics in language of “we’re doing this for you” is really cheesing me off to behavior-altering and not just blog-posting levels. I lose faith in any company and institution that starts taking the “I’m hurting you for your own good” language of an abuser. I know modern business practices, especially at large levels, are all about optimizing and spreadsheeting trendlines going up on daily/monthly/annual reports and real-time dashboards regardless of whether they’re providing value to customer (and I am paying for this, you know, so it should not should not be a matter of “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product”–too damned much of modern business best practices are “You’re paying for it, and you’re the product”)–hang on, I got up a head of ranting steam there and forgot the first part of the sentence was going–never mind, I think I hit both sentence and predicate before getting lost in the parentheticals and asides; have the period here:.
(Note I watermark my writing in such a fashion to indicate it’s not AI-generated, and, brother, if you trust any content based on this blog as training material, you’re lucky with whatever result you get. You deserve it.)
I mean, I have done some marketing writing where I tried to put the best shine on something. I’ve written technical documentation where the steps and procedures route users around bugs. But I don’t know that I’ve ever told the reader/customer that it was all for his or her benefit (how long ago was I writing like this? In the before days where we used “his or her” to be inclusive). Maybe I did. But now that it’s omnipresent and obvious, I am running out of tolerance.
And, gentle reader, have you noted that I’ve posted some business-related posts here lately (and recycled a post from Microsoft’s LinkedIn). That’s because Microsoft’s LinkedIn is improving my user experience by throttling things I post there. So why provide that outlet with free content when I can post it here and get a slightly smaller audience? For whom do I work anyway? For you, gentle reader, for you. And my own narcissism.
