2026 07 27
All good things come to an end. Marquette, Michigan. July 2026 © Clayton Hauck
It might be time to shut down this here blog…
When I started Pointing at Stuff a few years back, I loved the idea of a daily photo post. I’ve learned and grown quite a lot throughout the course of this project and have put much time into improving my writing skills, which is perhaps the most valuable takeaway. That said, it seems like the cons now outweigh the pros and it might be best to put my time elsewhere. Four websites is probably two too many…
The Reasons:
My hope was Blogging would make a comeback, however, increasingly it seems like newsletters are the place to be for the foreseeable future. This might be fine considering,
a majority of this website’s traffic comes from Chinese ai-scrapers (the US companies already swiped everything a long time ago) learning to automate human (my) speech and image capture abilities. Training your replacement is not very fun. In addition to this,
Squarespace just announced big price increases (they have since adjusted these downward likely due to outrage like mine, however, I’ve seen the writing on the wall ever since private equity took control and it will never stop. They will squeeze as many dollars out of me as they can). Considering this website is mostly a place for me to learn, grow, and explore, I don’t see why I need to be paying someone a ton of money for the opportunity. I don’t dislike Squarespace, however, it’s overkill for this particular use.
I’m currently working on (and struggling with!) my third printed photozine (book) that has spawned from this project, which is exciting, and am now focusing my writing and photo-posting efforts over on my Substack: a day with clay. The longer-term vision is to refresh my main website and use that as more of the home base where fun side projects like Pointing at Stuff can also live. One website; not two.
I’m not done yet, I’ll still be posting here for a bit while I figure out next steps (and determine when my hosting payment renews). Until then, I appreciate everyone who has stopped by to check out my work!
-Clayton
