Cancelled Grammarly

Sigh. Alas. Grammarly seems to have acquired a familiar addiction. AI. Microsoft has it. Google seems to be getting infected. They are not alone. But Grammarly”s addiction came at a cost, a subscription fee. The costs in terms of money, time, and effort exceeded any benefit that remained. Grammarly, I liked you for a while, then you got yourself hooked. I wish you well in your recovery.

WordPress has it too, I realize as I get ready to publish this post to one of my WordPress blogs.

Welcome to the Digital Singularity, I guess.

I write. Duh. I am a writer because I write, not because I have a degree in writing. (Aerospace and Ocean Engineering)

Pardon me. I was distracted by my washer/dryer which finally finished (circa 1:05PM) after starting before breakfast (circa 8AM). It is a sophisticated new breed of washer/dryer that uses one device in two modes. Load the clothes and soap in, start it up, look at the expected time to completion (~ 2 hours and 45 minutes), wait over 5 hours (do the math), and marvel at the fact that it runs at 110 instead of 220, and has an internal heat pump which means no need for venting, and remember to clean the lint from everywhere because very little gets to the filter. At least it was a deal, ~$2,400 instead of >$3,600?, because it was a working floor model. And no, they won’t check it to see if it needs fixed. I welcome you to check a theme.

Ah, yes. Grammarly.

I liked Grammarly. It did a better job than I did at catching typos and erroes, er, eo, er, errors. It cost a little, but it was also quicker than I was. A computer used for its strengths.

Then the siren song of AI hit. The suggestions became more insistent. First they were like a colleague making observations. Then it was like, ‘Here, let me write that.’ Then it became AI all the time. And they expected me to pay for the unwanted help. 

Didn’t they ever learn the lesson about Clippy? Microsoft came up with this new ‘intelligent’ agent. About then is when I stopped buying Microsoft products.

About then I realized that, while I am not perfect (#MassiveUnderstatement) I got my point across reasonably well, no MFA required.

I know several writer friends who pulled back from talking to me because I said I preferred other tools than MSWord. Keep in mind that I’ve lived in the vicinity of Microsoft’s HQ for decades. There is some serious brand loyalty going on. I hope the company appreciates it.

I’ve written and published approximately 3,000,000 words so far. (Amazon, various business clients, and several blogs – MyTinyExperiment.com, PretendingNotToPanic.com, TrimbathCreative.net) My tool has shifted to Apple’s and Microsoft’s base word processors (Notes, etc.), and now Google Docs. Free (or cheap) is preferred.

When I need to upload an MSWord doc to a publisher, I cruise over to the local library, log in, work from their latest and greatest version of Word/PDF, and let them upgrade the hardware and software until the next time I need it.

But then there came a corporate client and yet another book, so I decided to ‘act professional’ by subscribing to Grammarly’s services. It helped. Even if all they(it) did was spell check and not grammatical erroes, er, errors, it was faster than my editing work. Cool.

Cue halcyon days.

Watch that sun fade.

Grammarly added AI and expected me to be glad. Could they ask first? But wait, all I have to do is say ‘No’ and click over to this other version, and continually defend against their intrusions.

I haven’t decided if it was more like an aggressive sales pitch, or an over-eager child who sincerely wants to help without knowing they’re getting in the way. I’ll credit the first to Microsoft and the second to Grammarly.

No means no. You had a good thing and ruined it (are you listening, WordPress?) and never apologized. New does not equal improved.

I’m sure one of the automated editors would point out a series of my errors, but fixing them could look like this was written by AI, ironically.

Recently, I used the term ‘semi-luddite’ to describe myself. Others liked it.

I think the newly introduced Slate truck is a fine example of someone saying, too much is too much and just enough is just right. Craigslist never deviated. Wikipedia understands simplicity within complexity. Linux may be the way I need to go, but I’d prefer to stay within the Google ecosystem; but then, I used to say that about Apple, which I have also abandoned.

This post wasn’t supposed to be a rant. I’m glad it has parts that are akin to raves. I guess that’s because I had so much hope when I started using Grammarly. So goes that hope.

Back to a simple word processor (Google Docs), continuing a search for a better site host (and sticking with WordPress until I find it), and realizing that some entrepreneur can produce a simple, robust, compatible word processor to claim a possibly large and underserved market.

Good bye, Grammarly, I suspect your choice will work well for you financially, but for this guy who has his own personal style, I say (or write) fair well.

(Lightly edited with Google Docs using its Spelling and Grammar check after I’m done writing. Barely any difference.)