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It's hard to even imagine what a best-case scenario looks like for Matt at this point. Putting aside the matter of righteousness, his business is pretty much ch
by talldayo 2y ago
It's hard to even imagine what a best-case scenario looks like for Matt at this point. Putting aside the matter of righteousness, his business is pretty much chalked for professional applications at this point. B2B partnerships are done - anyone with lawyers on-staff are going to get shoulder-tapped and asked to find another hosting solution. Smaller customers have all the more reason to bleed out to competitors, and the plugin/theme ecosystem is going to see the writing on the wall better than anyone else. Qui bono? Who is Matt "protecting" from harm, really?
I just don't understand in any sense what the end goal was here. On the one hand, I feel like I must not understand because I lack an emotional connection to the project. In the other hand, I feel like a stoic approach is the only one that makes sense. It's a baffling tempest-in-a-teapot that must have extra details I don't understand. If all this occurred with no hidden motives, it would be a shockingly wasteful decision.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 2y agoIf it's any three things, it's about money, money, and money. Zooming out a bit, Automattic acquired Tumblr and like all those before it seems to be choking on it. Competitors like Wix, Squarespace, WebFlow and Shopify are all nipping at WordPress' marketshare. I don't know what WordPress.com's stats look like, but blogging is out of sytle. New cool kids want the new black. That is to be social media influencers. Along the same lines, the WordPress Community is "aging out". Events online or off there's too little "youth" engaged and excited about the product. In shoet, the pie isn't what it once was. Matt looked around the room, saw deep pockets (i.e., WP Engine) and made a go for it. That was a poor decision. Seeing himself as a cult leader who would get unwavering support from his cult (aka The WordPress Community) was another mistake. People are fatigued and enough them have stopped drinking his Kool Aid. There are pockets of support but certainly not what it used to be. Many WP people are anxious to move on from the Mattopoly.
- pier25 2y ago> blogging is out of sytle OTOH maybe the majority of WP users are not blogging. It's anecdotal but I know about a dozen WP users first-hand (and maintain a couple of those installations) and none of them use it for blogging. It's mostly for marketing websites and shops with WooCommerce.
- chiefalchemist 2y agoThat's .org version of WP. WP.com - Automattic's bread & butter - was the big 2nd gen blogging platform. Yes, agreed WooComm is new. Nonetheless, social media'ing has replaced "I got a website" and "I got a blog."
- safety1st 2y agoWhatever else may be going on, your observations contain errors. Automattic has been on an insane revenue growth tear for years. WordPress install growth out in the wild has been flat for two years but not ticked down, when 43% of the Internet runs your software there are probably a lot of reasons it's hard to grow that number. In general, companies in this vertical are not really hurting. https://getlatka.com/companies/automattic https://getlatka.com/companies/automattic https://www.wpzoom.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/ https://www.wpzoom.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/ Data = good; facts = good
- chiefalchemist 2y ago"Insane" revenue growth in the past. The question is: What's going on in Matt's head? What does he see in the future? Truth: Belief drives behavior. To go nuclear as MM did, what is he believing? What is his future like? But you picked a good word: insane. So yeah, we're on the same page. The difference is direction. Past v future.
- Loudergood 2y agoConsidering he's gone nuclear for dumber reasons in the past(see Tumblr) what he sees and reality are probably far different.