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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$4 Here's the dope. It used to simply be Homestead a place where you could build your corner of the web. Just the name: Homestead, evokes a simpler, earlier time in the history of America, land of the free, destination for all those in a quest for the search for happiness. But when people were homesteading America, the surge of colonization again displaced thousands of indigenous peoples ignored by the colonists. It has been the same throughout history. Now Homestead becomes a schizophrenic dichotomy of a service. Homestead Professional, which offers everything you might have been used to as a subscriber and webmaster at Homestead, And of course Homestead Personal, a scaled down version of the software. Will there still be a "Homestead-Free Websites" I doubt it. You have to pay for this service, too. You have to pay. Period. Get used to it. Fot those who can't pay, transfer your sites to Geocities, er, I mean Yahoo Geocities, or Angelfire, or one of the countless Free Website Hosting Services who haven't come to the realization, like Homestead apparently has, that the promise of a truly democratic and "free" internet has to be broken. Every thing costs money, and everybody has to pay. Eventually, (We don't have much time) I will add my own versions of the saved emails from Homestead CEO Justin Glitch, but I rapidly built this parody website on Sunday, June 17th. 2001, and am tired because it's way past 1am and I'm supposed to be at work at 4am. (Work is the place that pays me so I can eventually pay for Homestead.) But writing this is more important right now. Maybe I'll call in sick. I have written a lot in my short history on Earth, and with what I have always so naively called the promise of the internet, the ability to enable common folk like me, who do not know the "codes" of internet webhosting, to do whatever our creative minds dictate, using easy software like the SiteBuilder editor which used to be, but isn't anymore, although some parts of their website seem to still claim it, free, and is now only available for a price. There are a lot of people who have trusted Homestead and they have been betrayed. I am a simple "failed writer" who had a dream of posting all (300 or so) of his unpublished poems on the internet in order perhaps to inspire and enlighten humanity. Now we have questions. What will happen? What will happen to my site(s)? Especially if I bought Homestead's dream of building a website without needing to pay any attention to the placement of the "building blocks", i.e. HTML coding, to get my dreams online. Well, in the process, being 48 and willing to learn, I have gotten to the point where I can either pay to keep my sites on Homestead, or I can transfer them to another website hosting service (which hopefully won't start charging) One like Geocities, which is hosting this parody. But eventually we wiil all have to pay. Homestead would have been more honest, in my opinion, if they would have charged us in the first place. Here's the link to the first "email" I received from Justin Glitch. Upgrade to Homestead Professional! Not sure what it's all about? Have questions? Click here for more info.
