14/03/2021
WHAT IS WRONG WITH WIX?
2 posts in 1 day! WHAT?!!
Ok this one is going to be super controversial... But Kayleigh and I have been at an argument about this... so lets start discussing.
What is up with this WIX platform anyway?
There's three issues: one general, one industry specific, and one business wise.
I'll start general with an example.
I've got four to five clients who are all "professional" wedding photographers.
The problem is that only one went to school for it.
The others simply bought expensive digital cameras. "Well, if they're getting paid just the same, then bully for them," you might say, "if the professionally trained one was good, she'd be able to compete." It's, sadly, not really the case.
The educated photographer is far better. Her shots are framed perfectly, timed perfectly, coloured perfectly, and are superior in every way. The problem is that the average consumer can't tell the difference or doesn't value the difference. As much as I like my other friends, they are benefiting from an ignorant consumer. Extrapolate this issue out and it will lead to an overall decline in the quality of the entire industry.
That's the problem. The curators of the art are being lost in the crowd and the art is getting worse. All we have are regurgitators who don't understand the art they're practicing.
It stagnates. To apply it to this post, it's a bunch of people picking from a small selection of templates and eventually everyone's website is going to look like everyone else's. That cheapens the entire industry.
Now the industry specific issue: Wysiwygs (what you see is what you get) like wix will never, ever be written as well as what a professional web developer will do. Ever. Writing the code takes planning and a view of the full picture to be efficient. Efficiency leads to a faster web that requires less data.
Wysiwygs (What you see is what you get) create a lot of bloat. They also generally suck at maintaining accessibility, so users with various disabilities are prevented from using the website. It's not their fault, it's the nature of the programming language that they're trying to exploit. To use an analogy, it's like picking from a set number of blueprints to build your house. Firstly, you so might not know enough to know which floor plan works best for your plot of land. And the builder isn't able to make any adjustments. So if you choose poorly, the builder will have to "make it work" somehow. It'll lead to a bunch of shoddily built houses that all look alike. And finally, the business model aspect: shouldn't you own your own website? Shouldn't you have full control of it?
This is the equivalent of having the only way anyone knows about your business is through a billboard you rent. Without the billboard, no one would be able to find your store. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but what happens if the guy you rent the billboard decides not to renew your contract, or decides to tear the billboard down, or has his company sold to someone else? You're left with nothing, and the same applies to wix.
You can't take your files with you. It's all or nothing and you are completely dependent on them. If they ever shut down, or changes their rates, or sells their servers to someone else, or is taken over hostile, you're out of the luck and most likely out of a website. That $9 or so per month you paid? You have zero to show for it. That's just bad business and we've seen enough businesses come and go that we don't ever recommend allowing any business to have sole rights to your data. If our hosting company goes t**s up, we just grab a copy of the site and switches it over. We're mobile, agile, and we own or own code.
Lastly, the templates all suck and look unprofessional (fight me if you disagree), it isn't SEO friendly, you can't add much functionality, and it costs at least $9/mo. for them not to put ads on your site (Yup, the cheap $4/mo. plan they put ads on your site). You could just buy a domain (first year $1 total on GoDaddy), get hosting ($2-3/mo.), do one click WordPress install, and use a free WordPress template which would give you a better site for less money.
