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Probably not too many. The average WordPress site is run by a small business that doesn’t care the slightest bit about tech industry drama, or what open source

Probably not too many. The average WordPress site is run by a small business that doesn’t care the slightest bit about tech industry drama, or what open source even means.

righthand 2y ago
That may be enough, the average Wordpress site probably is subsidized by the larger sites that may leave. I don’t see the amount of employees exiting as a small amount even though it’s not even 20%.
- keiferski 2y ago
  Pretty unlikely. In my experience, WordPress is basically the go-to solution for people that need a cheap website and don't want to think about it too much. Especially for non-technical people running a law firm, consultancy, etc. The technical folks that care about recent events most likely left WP years ago.
  - righthand 2y ago
    I’m not sure what’s unlikely. Customers leaving? My company is a customer, we’re leaving. Or that most free sites are subsidized by paying customers? Why is that unlikely that seems pretty par for the course for free services.
    - keiferski 2y ago
      I'm saying that WordPress is incredibly widespread, far more than I think most tech industry people realize. The average WordPress site builder doesn't know or care who Matt Mullenweg is or what open source means. WordPress is just the simplest way to make a usable website – and has been for the last 20 years, almost.
      - righthand 2y ago
        Okay I get that but I’m discussing people that don’t self host or need more than the basics. Those are the users affected by Matt’s action. For example, our site repos only include the site theme we deploy to WP Engine, so our stack is essentially Wordpress, not WP Engine Wordpress. All the WP Engine stuff is handled once deployed invisible to us. So when we log in we expect Wordpress features. Yes there are a lot of Wordpress installs, a lot of them perhaps never even updated. You can claim those as being loyal to Wordpress but if they just set it up and forget it then there’s probably no real loyalty to Automattic. If you have concerns about just setting up a site on a different platform outside of Automattic for whatever reason, why would you trust it any longer? Those people will move on to another just as easy to install cms. Wordpress hasn’t gotten easier to customize in the last x years since your 3.0 install or whatever. Easy to install and forget isn’t a Wordpress exclusive idea. It perhaps has a lot of mind share, but this is the 2nd time Matt has taken drastic action. It’s now at historical precedent levels.
        keiferski 2y ago
        They don't need to be loyal, they just need to be lazy, lazy enough to not want to learn a new technology and spend money + time switching to it. They won't move on to another CMS, because they don't care about WordPress tech industry drama and they don't know who Matt Mullenweg is. WordPress will continue to work just fine for them and they will continue not caring about an issue that will be forgotten about in a month. The vast, vast majority of people using WordPress think of it as an old, reliable, simple way to make a website, and nothing more.
        righthand 2y ago
        I bet they know someone who cares and all a switch takes is “hey I found this other cms just as easy as wordpress to setup and it’s less confusing to manage”. Yes there will be people who will never switch, but there are also people that do the advising to those people. If you’re not technically inclined you probably have someone you keep around that IS technically inclined, no?
Topgamer7 2y ago
I think these days, the average WordPress site runner is trying to find a cheap/free. Non-technical solution. I help out with a sports league who run a couple wordpress sites. - One, its totally the wrong CMS for how they use it. - Two, they have almost no ability to diagnose and debug issues themselves. Honestly 80% of the issues that get raised to me are even just solved by clicking "keep plugin automatically updated" They really just want a CMS that allows them to share announcements, post schedules and where to show up to play. But it gets the job done, for cheap, and there is a decent community on plugins and themes. Wordpress was originally popular because of its openness and community right? I wonder if that's still the platform it is.
- righthand 2y ago
  No I don’t see it as an open platform with a strong community. Matt has demonstrated he will shut off features for large swaths of sites where is the openness there? The community plugins are loyal to a few popular plugins that all have pay walls if you want to do more than the basics. Any time Wordpress implements a new feature they have to do so it doesn’t completely crush the plugin community. Like site maps for example are trapped behind using a wordpress hook or using a plugin like Yoast to customize them.
- ppseafield 2y ago
  I'll second the sibling poster here by saying anything useful you want to do with WordPress will probably have a non-negligible cost, and usually a subscription. WooCommerce for instance requires a subscription to add a minimum quantity to a product! I volunteer for a non-profit that uses it, and it's absolutely insane how many plugins will give you a little for free but charge $5/month or $50/year for just slightly more features.
  - dgacmu 2y ago
    If you were to guide them today, what would you set them up that's not WP that gives functionality similar to wp+woo? (asking for someone who has a site using wp+woo. I don't plan to switch us - the switching cost is too high to be worth it - but I do want to have something in my pocket for the future.)

Probably not too many. The average WordPress site is run by a small business that doesn’t care the slightest bit about tech industry drama, or what open source even means.

righthand 2y ago

That may be enough, the average Wordpress site probably is subsidized by the larger sites that may leave. I don’t see the amount of employees exiting as a small amount even though it’s not even 20%.

keiferski 2y ago
Pretty unlikely. In my experience, WordPress is basically the go-to solution for people that need a cheap website and don't want to think about it too much. Especially for non-technical people running a law firm, consultancy, etc. The technical folks that care about recent events most likely left WP years ago.
- righthand 2y ago
  I’m not sure what’s unlikely. Customers leaving? My company is a customer, we’re leaving. Or that most free sites are subsidized by paying customers? Why is that unlikely that seems pretty par for the course for free services.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I'm saying that WordPress is incredibly widespread, far more than I think most tech industry people realize. The average WordPress site builder doesn't know or care who Matt Mullenweg is or what open source means. WordPress is just the simplest way to make a usable website – and has been for the last 20 years, almost.
    - righthand 2y ago
      Okay I get that but I’m discussing people that don’t self host or need more than the basics. Those are the users affected by Matt’s action. For example, our site repos only include the site theme we deploy to WP Engine, so our stack is essentially Wordpress, not WP Engine Wordpress. All the WP Engine stuff is handled once deployed invisible to us. So when we log in we expect Wordpress features. Yes there are a lot of Wordpress installs, a lot of them perhaps never even updated. You can claim those as being loyal to Wordpress but if they just set it up and forget it then there’s probably no real loyalty to Automattic. If you have concerns about just setting up a site on a different platform outside of Automattic for whatever reason, why would you trust it any longer? Those people will move on to another just as easy to install cms. Wordpress hasn’t gotten easier to customize in the last x years since your 3.0 install or whatever. Easy to install and forget isn’t a Wordpress exclusive idea. It perhaps has a lot of mind share, but this is the 2nd time Matt has taken drastic action. It’s now at historical precedent levels.
      - keiferski 2y ago
        They don't need to be loyal, they just need to be lazy, lazy enough to not want to learn a new technology and spend money + time switching to it. They won't move on to another CMS, because they don't care about WordPress tech industry drama and they don't know who Matt Mullenweg is. WordPress will continue to work just fine for them and they will continue not caring about an issue that will be forgotten about in a month. The vast, vast majority of people using WordPress think of it as an old, reliable, simple way to make a website, and nothing more.
        righthand 2y ago
        I bet they know someone who cares and all a switch takes is “hey I found this other cms just as easy as wordpress to setup and it’s less confusing to manage”. Yes there will be people who will never switch, but there are also people that do the advising to those people. If you’re not technically inclined you probably have someone you keep around that IS technically inclined, no?

Topgamer7 2y ago

I think these days, the average WordPress site runner is trying to find a cheap/free. Non-technical solution. I help out with a sports league who run a couple wordpress sites. - One, its totally the wrong CMS for how they use it. - Two, they have almost no ability to diagnose and debug issues themselves. Honestly 80% of the issues that get raised to me are even just solved by clicking "keep plugin automatically updated" They really just want a CMS that allows them to share announcements, post schedules and where to show up to play. But it gets the job done, for cheap, and there is a decent community on plugins and themes. Wordpress was originally popular because of its openness and community right? I wonder if that's still the platform it is.

righthand 2y ago
No I don’t see it as an open platform with a strong community. Matt has demonstrated he will shut off features for large swaths of sites where is the openness there? The community plugins are loyal to a few popular plugins that all have pay walls if you want to do more than the basics. Any time Wordpress implements a new feature they have to do so it doesn’t completely crush the plugin community. Like site maps for example are trapped behind using a wordpress hook or using a plugin like Yoast to customize them.
ppseafield 2y ago
I'll second the sibling poster here by saying anything useful you want to do with WordPress will probably have a non-negligible cost, and usually a subscription. WooCommerce for instance requires a subscription to add a minimum quantity to a product! I volunteer for a non-profit that uses it, and it's absolutely insane how many plugins will give you a little for free but charge $5/month or $50/year for just slightly more features.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  If you were to guide them today, what would you set them up that's not WP that gives functionality similar to wp+woo? (asking for someone who has a site using wp+woo. I don't plan to switch us - the switching cost is too high to be worth it - but I do want to have something in my pocket for the future.)