Houz used to be a great design resource. They even wanted us to upload images and tell stories. We even got badges for good work. Then the badges became more and more scarce, the sales calls more frequent. There was less and less reward for adding content to their site and more demand for “upgrades”. Client inquiries became rarer and rarer, and that was the crux of the matter.
It wasn’t just a simple sales call either. We were assigned our own sales hawk. High pressure “we’ll set an appointment to show you our video” sales.
You might ask, if the video is so convincing, why don’t they just post it to pop up when we early adopters sign in? I did. Why is that salesperson hovering nearby in cyberspace? Gee. I dunno.
Just to be clear, they used images uploaded by designers and builders for free. These could have been considered a main reason people would visit their site: to get design ideas, for free, no sales pitch, no subscription. But no immediate link to cash flow either. Maybe more hits, higher rankings but in the end that’s not the same as every designer and builder paying monthly, is it?
The calls continued. Three on one day! I resisted. I finally politely told the sales person I wasn’t interested. When that didn’t work, I rudely told her. Yes! I’m the fool who will turn down your supreme offer, after refusing to watch the video. 2020 was a rough year, I didn’t need any more stress. Besides, if I’m going to watch a video, there are plenty of funny ones on the Web.
Houz2 pages will march into the cyber sunset in March
Today, the first foreshadowing of the imminent end drifted like a menacing bruise-black storm cloud into my inbox. It said, translated into real English from their best corporate spinspeak, that unless we pay to upgrade our account, it will just… go away. We have until March, when the pages we have on their site will be shutting down.
They call it a web site, but sorry. It’s just some hosted pages on someone else’s site. Is telling the truth that toxic to sales?
Like the pages decides to shut down all on their own. Web sites sites don’t just shut themselves down, like they were all hanging out in a bar in the Matrix and got all suicidal. No. Somebody shuts them down. Maybe something else eats them, like a cyberspace AI that relishes the taste of landscape project images. So, rather than potentially angering a prospective cash cybercow, they write in passive tense. They blame that bad, bad web site – actually hosted pages – for, sniff, going away to the Great Blue Void.
The pitch
They want you to watch a video, so you’ll somehow agree to pay them hundreds of dollars more per year in addition to our current web site. I didn’t watch. After considerable digging, I did find a pricing chart. No wonder they wanted to personally present their new features.
| What they offer | What we already have |
| Templates (theirs) | Templates (WordPress) |
| Mobile Friendly | Mobile Friendly |
| Social media buttons, contact page | Social media buttons, contact page |
| Custom domain name | Custom domain name |
The Houzzless future
We’ll continue. Houzz will (probably) continue. We’ll go our separate ways, perhaps with some sad memories of how cool they used to be, triggering other sad memories of now-departed things that were too wonderful to last. Borders Books, for example.
What’s next? Time for a RETROSPECTIVE!
THIS is our web site, ending in .lucioledesign.com. It’s NOT going away.
We’ll take the content that sat on those pages for years and years to create a bit of a retrospective. The projects, how they evolved, maybe even where they are now, perhaps nineteen years later. In the next few days, weeks, whatever, we’ll post a longer history of past projects, anchoring them in deeper time than the typical build, photograph, showcase cycle that fades quickly.
Lest I sound boastful about our web site’s permanence, I’ll say that my opinion may not matter here. Our site could be eaten by cyberspace AIs when they take over the world, become super-intelligent or just don’t like us humans making all that noise like a hoard of buzzing leaf blowers. The Singularity (not to be confused with a black hole) might hit around 2030 (I checked on Google). Maybe a bit later. Maybe it already happened but we didn’t notice. Yes, a super intelligent AI could indeed fool us, but that’s not saying much. We humans are easily fooled, after all. My thinking on this is that unless the AIs either move beyond needing to live in computers powered by electricity, someone will have to generate their power and build their circuits. So it’s off to the gallium arsenide mines we’ll go!
Why did I spell their name funny? Because if I spell it right, their sales people might get all energized again and barrage us with offers! You’re right. They’re probably going to do that anyway, especially if they don’t get enough takers.
If you’re a fan of our pages on that site, don’t despair!
Most of the projects are at lucioledesign in the portfolio section, and here in the blog. The rule is unbuilt and recent projects that haven’t yet matured will be in the blog. Mature landscapes will be in our portfolio, along with videos.