Episode 79
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I’m sure we’re all glad that year of WordPress is behind us.
WordCamp US 2024 marked the start of a transformative era for the culture of WordPressers—a situation that thrust the community and the greater ecosystem into a tailspin with widespread uncertainty and instability across various sectors.
As of this writing, we’re still unsure how the lawsuit between Matt Mullenweg/Automattic vs WP Engine will fully play out. While we witness the dust settle and find our new normal, here are the ways I think WordPress will change over the year 2025.
1. Automattic continues to rip off the band-aid
I think we can all agree that since the inception of Gutenberg, there hasn’t been a major “Wow!” moment for WordPress.
Usability has improved, and some cool concepts have shipped, but nothing showstopping has graced our wp-admin dashboards. It’s a two-sided coin, really:
Automattic needs to stay relevant, charm investors, and keep building cool stuff.
That’s hard enough for any product company—let alone an open-source product company. It boils down to marketing and awareness, which WordPress has always struggled with.
Even if Gutenberg was welcomed with open arms, excitement for building with blocks and using WordPress for your next website project was still necessary.
I believe that for Matt/Automattic to steer the ship back to relevancy, he needed to pull this entire operation back under full control. Lines needed to be drawn—and they certainly were in 2024.
I noticed a “different” tone when Mullenweg appeared on WP Product Talk earlier in 2024. The change was coming back then. Did I think it would be the ‘scorched Earth nuclear‘ approach we witnessed? No.
You wouldn’t be wrong if you argued that Mullenweg has been trending in this direction for years, but it seemed like 2024 was filled with far too many distractions: a flailing Tumblr acquisition or spending tens of millions on messenger apps.
What about focusing on WordPress?
I’ve predicted that, in the future, we’ll visit WordPress.org and find: “The best way to experience WordPress is at WordPress.com or by hosting WordPress powered by Jetpack.” And then somewhere far below that H1, you’ll find in small text: “Click here to download WordPress for free.”
In the short term, ripping off the band-aid to let the world know Matt’s in charge is one step closer to that reality. One step closer and fewer distractions for Mullenweg—perhaps less community involvement, and much more of the mothership in control in 2025.
2. Community -> Communities
The WordPress community as we knew it is not comin
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
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