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WordPress Is in Trouble

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Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#291

Post by seriocomic »

moshegramovsky wrote: post #219
gspencley wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take on this has to do entirely with how the decision to block WP Engine access to WordPress.org, unless they were willing to pay for it, was arrived at. And this is a critical detail that I'm fuzzy on. If anyone has context (even links with further info) I'd be very much appreciative. I have since read the WP Engine complaint. I understand what they are alleging. I'm just not 100% clear on the nitty and…

Well said. I think Matt Mullenweg has every right to take the action he's taking. It really seems like many companies are perfectly happy to exploit open source products. In this case, it seems like one company makes a lot of money using the Wordpress codebase and doesn't want to make equal contributions. Then they use the money they're making to turn around and sue Wordpress for standing up for themselves. If I were…

I don't think there's any disagreement about that particular aspect of what kicked this all off (in terms of being incensed about an imbalance of contributions to money being made) - it's the _way_ he went about that, _then_ all the subsequent WPDrama that unfolded (personal attacks, unilateral cancellations, removals, blockages, deletions etc) that has most people concerned.

I've been around WordPress since 2003 (since the fork from B2/Cafelog) and have watched Matt evolve over that time, make a few missteps, act/react with humility, speak conscientiously on a wide range of matters and issues. The actions of the past 12 months seem quite contrary to that established behaviour (speaking from a far perspective & never had met the man in person).

I feel sad whether this is a deliberate or unintentional (mental) path, but am confident that like the drama that created WP's popularity orignally (MoveableType), there will be a path forward for the community - it's the damage that will be done in getting there that's upsetting...

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#292

Post by hluska »

harikb wrote: post #261
vasco wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have a point about what will happen, but that can happen at the same time as a mental breakdown. How do you justify something like this https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/17/pineapple-on-pizza-is-deli... if you only believe in the power play? How does this fit in?

Here is an alternate possibility 1. They introduced a checkbox for "users to confirm that they are not affiliated with WP Engine" 2. A court ordered Automattic to reverse course 3. Developer thought it was easy to quickly just change the text rather than make code changes. Let us not say people are crazy when there are alternate narratives

3. Developer thought it was easy to quickly just change the text rather than make code changes.

To some nonsense about pineapple on pizza? Are there any adults left?

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#293

Post by burnte »

kmeisthax wrote: post #238

> Then yesterday happened. Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine. This action is blamed on the “the legal attacks started by WP Engine and funded by Silver Lake”, which I think is a gross mischara…

> WP Engine owns several WordPress plugin developers. Does plugin development not count now?

Mullenweg stole the Custom fields plugin from WPEngine. So no, plugin development doesn't could when he can steal the plugin away from you.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#294

Post by llm_trw »

pants2 wrote: post #126
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason that Reddit's API changes killing the best clients was so poisonous is that the resulting non-exodus showed other companies that they can take user-hostile actions with impunity. A big enough mass of passive and undiscerning users will stay no matter what. Hence there being more freedom to take a strategy like this.

I think Reddit's API changes and more did lead to an Exodus of a good chunk of power users that gave the site more of an identity. But what's worse is the official Reddit clients gamify using Reddit so much that, on the whole, content quality is down significantly, even in the smaller niche subreddits that usually had great stuff. The problem is high quality content isn't profitable, endless scrolling is.

This is making the big assumption that power users add to the quality of the site instead of the quantity.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#295

Post by nativeit »

goatlover wrote: post #215
chrismsimpson wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps more indicative of late stage capitalism where rent seekers try to extract more and more value and consolidate more and more power.

Do you know an economic system in the real world that doesn't have this problem?

We spent most of the last 70-years doing a pretty good job of aggressively sabotaging and suppressing any efforts to develop alternative economic systems. Even the few successes one might claim for communism are largely dependent on some kind of concession to allow for capitalism in limited areas. This doesn’t necessarily mean that capitalism is inherently superior, it’s just dominant.

The problem as I see it isn’t simply capitalism=bad, it has produced the greatest expansion of wealth in history after all, but rather it’s just not equipped to be the answer for everything. There are problems and opportunities that exist where capitalism does not have a solution for. Things like healthcare, equitable wealth distribution, and environmental sustainability are the obvious examples that come to mind.

These false dichotomies and unnecessarily tribalistic positions where pure devotion to free market capitalism is demanded are hobbling American society and its ability to maintain stability and take care of its citizens, since every attempt to suggest that some industries should be at least partially socialized, or even mildly regulated, are met with demagoguery and fear mongering. Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that’s what’s happening here, I am speaking in broad terms.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#296

Post by donohoe »

tylershuster wrote: post #196

I don't understand how (if?) WordPress has popularity among serious professionals. Extending it without plugins, many of which are paid, is a nightmare. Adding custom fields is laborious, configuring post type display modes is a slog as well. HN seems to grumble about Drupal but even if your only requirement is a PHP server with a MySQL database connect, Drupal (8+) is just as simple to set up as WordPress and infini…

>> Extending it without plugins, many of which are paid, is a nightmare.

Many of are free, and you can often build your own. You can easily extend it without plugins, but you're doing your future self a favor if you stuck your new features in one (so you can update themes etc easily in the future).

>> Adding custom fields is laborious, configuring post type display modes is a slog as well.

Hard disagree here. Whether you are using ACF for custom fields or post types, doing it manually takes more time but is not that difficult. Its typically a set of actions you wouldn't do often either.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#297

Post by debesyla »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #233
daitangio wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear you are right. Remember they ask $25/monthly for 1 website on pressable, I can run Wordpress open source for 5x month on Linode, and there are ready made installation on docker, digital ocean and so on…

Pressable includes support, global caching, and a bunch of other things you won't get on a $5/month VPS. Also not everyone wants to play system administrator 7 days a week to keep their server from getting hijacked or nuked.

True, but shared hosting providers (like hostinger) offers basically the same, but for cheaper and no pricing per website, even on cheaper plans you can fit five or more sites in.

Of course, it doesn't matter in the end - as long as users have ability to choose a hosting there will be cheaper and "better" options. Shopyfing wordpress would be worse...

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#299

Post by nightpool »

vasco wrote: post #251
dangrossman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a mental breakdown, I think this is a (poorly executed) long pivot into Matt's companies having tighter control over the ecosystem and keeping more of the profits from hosting, plugin and theme sales. He's burning down "the community" on purpose. In a couple years, it'll be run more like Shopify, where the theme store and app store only list products that run their billing through Shopify and give…

I think you may have a point about what will happen, but that can happen at the same time as a mental breakdown. How do you justify something like this https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/17/pineapple-on-pizza-is-deli... if you only believe in the power play? How does this fit in?

I'll be honest: I think it's pretty funny, and I think matt probably agrees. Also, as others mention, it's much easier/faster then removing the field and column and validation, yes.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#300

Post by hluska »

ismail wrote: post #284
jjmarr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average user... stopped getting automatically banned for joining the wrong subreddits. Still happens, you're just not allowed to talk about it. /r/bannedforbeingjewish (which collated this) is banned,[1] but to give an example, /r/interestingasfuck (13 million subscribers) bans users that are members of /r/Israel.[2] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/bannedforbeingjewish/ [2] https://archive.is/OkfOY

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