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Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

(torment-nexus.mathewingram.com)
154 points davidandgoliath | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 18:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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runjake ◴[17 Oct 24 20:28 UTC] No.41873436[source]▶
One important people to keep in mind as they read this post, the linked Google Doc, and tweets from the past day where a bunch of people are receiving unsolicited DMs[1] from Automattic with grammar that matches Matt's:

- Matt, under various guises, is shifting blame to different entities that are effectively himself.

- Automattic is Matt. Matt is the CEO of Automattic.

- The WordPress Foundation is, effectively, Matt.

- The problem is Matt. Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous.

1. https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1846448485979107824

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zeruch ◴[17 Oct 24 20:48 UTC] No.41873619[source]▶
"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous."

This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now.

It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about it.

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codetrotter ◴[17 Oct 24 21:37 UTC] No.41874079[source]▶
> It's a boon for competitors I suppose

I would think so too, but it’s not guaranteed.

Everyone thought for sure that Twitter would die with what Elon Musk has been doing to it, but somehow it seems to still be alive.

Likewise, everyone thought there would be a total exodus of users from Reddit to Lemmy or Kbin. And while those platforms did get a lot of new users, it feels like it didn’t reach the level of significance of the Digg -> Reddit mass-migration.

Therefore I am not convinced that people will actually be leaving Wordpress in droves. No matter how bad the situation currently seems for WP users.

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KerrAvon ◴[17 Oct 24 21:45 UTC] No.41874135{3}[source]▶
Twitter is dead, it just hasn't stopped twitching yet. Turns out network effects are extremely durable. There is no time like the present to move to BlueSky if you haven't already.
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1. dhosek ◴[17 Oct 24 21:51 UTC] No.41874185{4}[source]▶
Indeed, network effects are durable but not unbreakable. I haven’t deleted my Twitter account yet, mostly because there are those (increasingly rare) occasions when it’s necessary to log in to view some thread or the like, but when I find myself there, it always feels like a raging dumpster fire. Building a new network on BlueSky took a while, but it was definitely worthwhile, and while there are a handful of people I miss from Twitter, I have a good community that fills the need that Twitter used to. I suspect that for most tech people, Mastodon is going to be the new destination and there will never be a single destination for social networking again, but maybe that’s a good thing.