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This post says pretty much nothing. Irrelevant to what exactly? It is all subjective. Wordpress is highly relevant in many markets and use cases. So is Cobol, a

This post says pretty much nothing. Irrelevant to what exactly? It is all subjective. Wordpress is highly relevant in many markets and use cases. So is Cobol, and IBM mainframes. What the author actually means is that WordPress isn't trendy or popular. The problem though with all these managed solutions is that every time you want to setup a new site you need to start paying a new monthly fee. Setup Wordpress (or any other open source CMS) on a web host and you can host as many websites from that one installation as you'd like for the same small hosting fee. If one thing takes off then dedicate resources to it. Speaking from experience, many customers prefer not to manage their site content themselves. They want to hire a local person they can call and have things done for them on their website. These small web shops will always choose something like WordPress over say Webflow because of cost, control, and not having to worry if the investors give up on the trendy startup you tied your business to. Open source still has many advantages over the paid services. But just like the Linux desktop, open source CMSs need to work on UX and on telling their story better.

fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago
It’s entered the utility collapse curve. MySpace still exists but you can pinpoint the plateau and decline. Wordpress will not grow from here on out, it will shrink. Likewise, that “40%” number never says how many of those websites have been updated in the past year. My guess is less than half of currently hosted Wordpress sites are “active” in any real sense. I see no reason any anybody starting today would pick Wordpress. The drama is only going to accelerate the inevitable decline.
- macinjosh 2y ago
  I provided reasons some in my original post. But not everyone looking for a CMS is terminally online and plugged into X/HN tech circles nor care when creating a website for their client's muffler shop. Those who do not like the SaaS business models for whatever reason (and there are many) still have incentive to use WordPress, a fork, or some other open source CMS. I don't understand why the social death of WP/Matt M. equals the demise of open source content management in general. If anything, with AI empowering more people to do technical things I see a bigger opening for open source CMSs going forward. Training data for open source stuff will be all over the web, while training data for WebFlow and squarespace etc. will be largely limited to their support site which might even be gated.
  - fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago
    Who said anything about open source demise in general? Wordpress is past its prime, has always been a wrapper over a hideous dogshit codebase, has bad leadership, is in a crisis, and will slowly disappear. It’s natural, and not a big deal. Wordpress pushed out other options, and now they too will fall. Something else will come along. The article is spot on.
    - wink 2y ago
      > WordPress usage has plateaued. Spot on in observing this, everything else is not so tangible. It does not really go into what the future of the web will look like, except maybe even more shifting to hosted walled gardens, but that's not exactly breaking news.

fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago

It’s entered the utility collapse curve. MySpace still exists but you can pinpoint the plateau and decline. Wordpress will not grow from here on out, it will shrink. Likewise, that “40%” number never says how many of those websites have been updated in the past year. My guess is less than half of currently hosted Wordpress sites are “active” in any real sense. I see no reason any anybody starting today would pick Wordpress. The drama is only going to accelerate the inevitable decline.

macinjosh 2y ago
I provided reasons some in my original post. But not everyone looking for a CMS is terminally online and plugged into X/HN tech circles nor care when creating a website for their client's muffler shop. Those who do not like the SaaS business models for whatever reason (and there are many) still have incentive to use WordPress, a fork, or some other open source CMS. I don't understand why the social death of WP/Matt M. equals the demise of open source content management in general. If anything, with AI empowering more people to do technical things I see a bigger opening for open source CMSs going forward. Training data for open source stuff will be all over the web, while training data for WebFlow and squarespace etc. will be largely limited to their support site which might even be gated.
- fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago
  Who said anything about open source demise in general? Wordpress is past its prime, has always been a wrapper over a hideous dogshit codebase, has bad leadership, is in a crisis, and will slowly disappear. It’s natural, and not a big deal. Wordpress pushed out other options, and now they too will fall. Something else will come along. The article is spot on.
  - wink 2y ago
    > WordPress usage has plateaued. Spot on in observing this, everything else is not so tangible. It does not really go into what the future of the web will look like, except maybe even more shifting to hosted walled gardens, but that's not exactly breaking news.