1. The End Of HubPages
I thought that the day would never come that I would have to compose this article, but it has happened. As of November 13, 2025, the staff of the HubPages writing platform has released an official announcement that they are going to shut down shop at least by the end of February of 2026 after being in existence for nearly two decades.
Last summer I informed you that there was a debacle going on at HubPages in which the higher-ups at The Arena Group ("TAG") that own HubPages were recycling Hubbers' articles in a plagiaristic manner without those people's knowledge or consent. In case you don't know what a Hubber is, it is someone who publishes articles on HubPages but doesn't work directly for that writing platform itself. That is what I am.
Well, now each and every Hubber that fears losing control over their articles is now making back-up copies of their articles and then removing them from the HubPages writing platform altogether. Even though I realized that this occurrence was inevitable, I still find it all so sad inasmuch as I joined HubPages back in 2016 and I have made some interesting friends on that same writing platform throughout the years.
2. The Events Behind The Scenes
The HubPages writing platform was founded in 2006 as a revenue-sharing business for writers of all kinds. Anyone could publish an article on the HubPages writing platform, and they would earn 60 percent of the revenues that it raked in and HubPages itself would earn 40 percent of them. The money came from advertisers.
The HubPages writing platform went through the usual growing pains that every online business experiences. However, as it grew into a thriving success, it acquired other similar writing platforms that made it stronger and stronger. It is currently headquartered in San Francisco, California.
I joined the HubPages writing platform in 2016, which was the same year that it created what are called vertical sites or niche sites. These same network sites each featured a particular category of topics, and each one was a way for Hubbers to earn extra money as opposed to publishing their articles on the regular HubPages site.
Those network sites were:
FatRing
PetHelpful
Bellatory
FeltMagnet
Delishably
AxleAddict
dengarden
Exemplore
LevelSkip
ReelRundown
ToughNickel
WanderWisdom
Spinditty
We Have Kids
YouMeMindBody
CarolieBee
PairedLife
LetterPile
TurboFuture
Holidappy
How They Play
Owlcation
HobbyLark
Soapboxie
SkyAboveUs
RemedyGrove
Patient'sLounge
HealthProAdvice
The Crime Wire
For a long time, many Hubbers were earning four figures a month, which paid off house mortgages and enabled many of them to put their kids through college, among other good things. However, after this one company named The Maven came along and purchased HubPages and then renamed themselves TAG, hard times hit each and every Hubber. What was once a profitable experience became like the lyrics of the song below.
The Song Titled "Too Beautiful To Last" By Engelbert Humperdinck
I know. That song really belongs to the soundtrack of the movie Nicholas and Alexandra, or at least the instrumental to it does; but you get my point. In any event, in 2024, one of HubPages' staff members, Lisa Winter, issued an official announcement notifying Hubbers that their articles on niche sites needed to be moved to the DiscoverHubPages site and anything left on the niche sites would no longer earn money for the Hubbers themselves.
Many Hubbers were outraged about this same decision on the part of TAG. They knew that their productivity statistics would plummet, and their earnings would go downward with it. After that point in time, a number of Hubbers left the platform. They saw no future in publishing articles on HubPages. Others did not give up hope that the HubPages writing platform would make an eventual comeback with all the perks that originally came with it.
By the late spring and early summer of 2025, a whole host of Hubbers noticed that TAG was taking fragments of their articles and recycling them into articles on the niche sites, even though those sites were no longer supposed to be earning money for the Hubbers. Of course, TAG was taking all the revenues from those same plagiarized articles for themselves.
A group of Hubbers came together to organize some kind of legal defense against those same unethical activities. A resolution to the situation still hangs up in the air.
The group of Hubbers that are challenging the higher-ups of TAG over the plagiarism that is going on are now in contact with a reputable journalist who has published articles about this sort of thing in the past. I'm keeping abreast of everything and seeing what I can do to contribute to their efforts.
As it stands, the productivity statistics that inform us how many views we've had on each article we've published on HubPages have been frozen for over five months, even though it shows the amount of commissions we receive to continue to accumulate. Therefore, many Hubbers are concerned that the HubPages writing platform is deceivingly paying every Hubber less than what their articles are earning.
Nevertheless, every Hubber has at least a few good times on the HubPages writing platform to talk about. Now it is all coming to an end.
Many Hivers have moved their articles over from the Hive writing platform and its blockchain platforms to the HubPages writing platform ever since HubPages first became popular back when the Hive writing platform and the Steemit writing platform were still all one entity. However, now they're all probably going to feel encouraged to move those articles back to the Hive writing platform.
Hopefully, those same people won't move any of those articles to the Steemit writing platform, because Steemit has become a collective intellectual wasteland ever since Justin Sun bought it out and decided to invite advertisers to invade that same writing platform so many years ago. What were you thinking, Mr. Sun? Many Steemians have moved over to the Hive writing platform since then as a result.
3. The Next Destination Point For Many Hubbers
Aside from the swarm of Hubbers that will probably bring their articles back to the Hive writing platform, many Hubbers have decided to move their articles over to the Medium writing platform. Although the Medium writing platform has community guidelines, rules, and the likes, it doesn't use advertisers as HubPages has done. Therefore, you'll encounter little or virtually no censorship there as you wouldn't do so on the Hive writing platform.
The only drawback about the Medium writing platform is that you have to pay $5.00 a month if you wish to earn any substantial money off of your articles there. You can be a writer there at no cost to you, but it's not as lucrative as paying for a subscription there. Hmmm. It's beginning to sound too much like the Blurt writing platform.
Then again, I like the idea of keeping my articles on my PEAKD channel separate from the ones I currently have on the HubPages writing platform. Therefore, I'm probably going to move all my articles on the HubPages writing platform over to the Medium writing platform.
I know. I had published an article here on my PEAKD channel about starting a Medium channel about 2 or 3 years ago. Well, now I have to make a speedy decision about it.
4. Final Thoughts
I had high hopes of making a whole bundle on the HubPages writing platform. At one point it seemed as though I was beginning to rake in a slightly noticeable amount of money from my articles on HubPages, although I must be brutally honest that I earned more money filling out surveys online than writing articles for HubPages.
A number of Hubbers have strong concerns that even though they will be deleting all of their articles from HubPages in the near future, the HubPages writing platform may still mine those same articles in a plagiaristic manner. I may be in for a long, vicious fight in that event. Then again, perhaps everything will go smoothly once I remove all of my article from HubPages.
I have over 300 articles to remove from the HubPages writing platform, and then I have to find them a home. That alone is going to be exhausting.
Do I have any regrets about publishing articles on the HubPages writing platform? No, I don't. If it were 2016 again and I had to do it all over again, I would. The only difference would be that I would want to know then what I know now about publishing articles on the Internet.
The Internet is like the Wild West. Predators are everywhere, getting ready to suck you dry of your talented efforts. At the same time, one cannot resist the Internet when it comes to moneymaking opportunities, because there are so many of them.
The really sad part about it is that there will be some Hubbers that I will never be able to communicate with again. Because many Hubbers are migrating over to the Medium writing platform, I will be able to keep in touch with them over there once I move all my articles from HubPages to that platform. Therefore, there is some happy ending to all of this.
Nevertheless, my transition over from one writing platform to another is going to be an entirely different experience for me altogether. I have to learn how to format my articles all over again on a different writing platform.
Somehow I get the distinct impression that the Medium writing platform is not as user-friendly as HubPages was. Oh, well, when you're a writer like me, you have to learn to roll with the punches.
The Substack writing platform is definitely out of the question for me. It requires too much overhead, which only makes it more difficult to earn money there on your articles than anywhere else.
Let me know what your thoughts are about this Earthshattering news in the comments section below, especially if you're a Hubber. I've search all over the Hive writing platform to see if anyone else has published an article about the HubPages writing platform going dark, and it looks as though I am the first and only Hiver to do so.
It's more tragic than back when the Infobarrel writing platform shut down. I had joined that same writing platform, but I had never done anything on it except for post a comment in the comments section of an article that I found interesting. Once that website disappeared forever, I didn't really lose anything.
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