Glad I decided to not use WP [LWN.net]

Glad I decided to not use WP

Posted Oct 15, 2024 1:57 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
Parent article: WordPress retaliation impacts community

A few months ago, I was looking to start a sort-of blog / repository, and tried WP locally. It looked mostly like overkill for what I wanted to start with, too many choices ("nobody needs 23 types of deodorant") for such a small project, so I started something on Substack. Not really what I wanted, but good enough, and a lot simpler to start with, up and running in 5 minutes.

What bothered me the most about WP was a seemingly random incoherent system for a newbie. Too many themes, and the only differentiation was their marketing jargon ("A free multi-diverse fresh re-imagining of ...") which told me nothing, and no sample pages to try them out without downloading and installing and possibly paying. I don't have the time or patience to try dozens of themes, especially when I know so little to start with, and there seemed to be thousands with content-free descriptions.

But I had no idea there was this much drama going on behind the scenes. It seems in hindsight to match the confusing mess I saw, which probably is fine once you've climbed that steep learning curve. I was also confused by having multiple web site sources, which I now realize WP Engine didn't help any.

Mullenweg sounds like a disaster. Maybe the community can sort things out, maybe not. Maybe someday my Substack will need more and I'll look again. But I won't do it as long as Mullenweg is fouling the waters.

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Glad I decided to not use WP

Posted Oct 24, 2024 2:50 UTC (Thu) by rmunn (guest, #40618) [Link] (4 responses)

The "nobody needs 23 types of deodorant" analogy is an interesting one, because it illustrates how freedom can look messy when you only examine it from only one point of view. It's perfectly true that nobody needs 23 types of deodorant... but all 23 of those types are in the store because *somebody* is buying them. If one of those 23 types was discontinued, *somebody* would be harmed. The harm might be small ("aw man, they got rid of my favorite scent!") or it might be large ("oh no, they got rid of the only one I wasn't allergic to, now I have to either stop wearing deodorant or have an itchy rash all the time"). But if one of those deodorant types went away, somebody, probably many people, would experience some level of harm. And so, what looks messy when you look at it from just the point of view of the individual buying (who just wants one variety), actually has good reason to exist when you consider the whole population of people buying deodorant.

The analogy isn't perfect here, because keeping products on shelves costs a story money, even if it's only opportunity cost from not having a better-selling product on that shelf space. So if nobody buys one variety of deodorant for months and months, the store will move it to the 75% off bin and give that shelf space to a more popular variety that they'll make money on. Whereas with Wordpress themes, plugins, etc., their overall size is so small (a handful of megabytes in most cases) that the cost of storage is tiny; there's no limited "shelf space" like there is in a store. So even if nobody downloads one theme or plugin for months and months, it won't be removed, unlike the deodorant varieties at the store.

But for nearly all of those themes and plugins, *somebody* is using them (in fact, probably many people are). So while the choice can be overwhelming to a newbie (unless someone has written recommendations -- "start with this setup, and choose from these three themes. You can add others later if you want."), there's a reason for it to exist.

It's true, though, that themes without sample pages or preview images are of VERY limited value. Not just to newbies, either.

Glad I decided to not use WP

Posted Oct 24, 2024 7:18 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (2 responses)

> The harm might be small ("aw man, they got rid of my favorite scent!")

Well, yeah, but on the other hand there's the harm (and, demonstrably, loss of sales) caused when the customer stands in front of that shelf for minutes and then leaves without a deodorant because there's simply overwhelmingly too much choice here.

Personally I don't want a deodorant with a favorite scent. I want one that makes me stop looking+smelling like a sweaty pig, period end of discussion. Nice scents are a separate concept, to be found three aisles over.
Unfortunately the deos without scent get somewhat buried, if not crowded out outright, by the 23-variety brands.

Yes this analogy extends to web frameworks/backends; my choice there happens to be Flask (or rather Quart-Trio, its sane-async-ized pseudo-fork).

Glad I decided to not use WP

Posted Oct 24, 2024 13:21 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

And this seems demonstrably borne out by the facts post-Covid.

I know there are supply chain issues which could still be causing problems, but the variety of choice in supermarkets over here has dropped dramatically. My personal example is coffee (which was declining pre-Covid), but since then the range has been cut back sharply - and many supermarket brands disappeared completely for a while. They have come back, but far smaller than before. And tea - I want to buy some Gunpowder, but most of the traditional blends have disappeared. There's a decent choice of fruit teas, but not old-fashioned traditional.

And a lot of brands now seem exclusive to just one or two retailers, where you used to be able to get them everywhere.

Cheers,
Wol

Availability of Tea Varieties

Posted Nov 3, 2024 23:10 UTC (Sun) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link]

You should come to the giant Tesco here in Coventry - I was looking for some lavender tea, because my daughter requested it, and spent fully twenty minutes trying to find it in about 20ft of shelving devoted to tea.

There were *seven varieties* of Rooibos alone, FFS. No lavender, though...

Glad I decided to not use WP

Posted Oct 24, 2024 11:40 UTC (Thu) by edgewood (subscriber, #1123) [Link]

Themes and plugins do have a bit of "shelf space"-like pressure; the WP upgrade treadmill. WordPress releases frequent updates and version upgrades. Themes and plugins have to test against the new versions, at least, and mark themselves compatible.

A plugin that stops doing that will not show as compatible with the current version in listings, and many security plugins will warn users of those plugins.

So makers of those plugins must invest some amount of time on an ongoing basis.