Change

I’ve just changed the hosting for my websites. I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of years now, but there are always other things to do.  Add to that the worry that there are so many services dependent upon the hosting provider its no surprise that I ended up staying where I was, paying over the odds for a declining service.

That’s the modern business model, get you tied down to so many different services you find it harder and harder to move. That’s why Apple and Google like to make themselves so indispensable to all the different parts of your life. That’s why people hate to move banks: they’re worried about the fuss of changing all their standing orders. Well, I moved banks in the mid 90’s, and once I’d done it I realised how easy it was to do it a second time. Once you become aware of how something works you become free to uproot and move somewhere better. People accept second best because they’re afraid to move on. They’re afraid because they don’t know how.

That’s my view, at least.

Vincent Deary writes far more convincingly on why people find it so difficult to change in his book How We Are (How to Live Trilogy 1).

Vincent Deary is a health psychologist, but don’t hold that against him. He’s written a quietly literary book that meanders through an impressive range of sources and references on just why people are creatures of habit. From urban planners to Terry Pratchett, from Primo Levi to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is a book packed full of small revelations that unite to form an oddly positive and refreshingly different perspective on what it is to be human.

As for the new webhosting… Well, so far it’s very, very good indeed. So good I’m thinking of giving them a mention on my tech site.