Did the WordPress Drama make things Worse for us?

[@donbaker3598]

Thank you Rino for taking the time to put this together and explain it. I have used your videos to learn WordPress and start a new business in retirement.

[@rinodeboer]

My pleasure, and that's so cool to hear

[@drift4yourself]

Great to hear! may i get your website link to reach out to you for collaborations?

[@rinodeboer]

Sure, that is rinodeboer.com

[@kierenshepherd]

Really appreciate the breakdown as always Rino. Some fantastic points and I completely agree with the decision to be more intentional. As I get older I feel as though the purpose behind the decisions I am making are sometimes more important than the decision itself. With that I believe I will also be choosing to take some "swims" to better explore options so I can provide my clients with a better service. Thank you again for the non-bias exploration of this topic. I look forward to seeing the live streams when the time is right for you :)

[@carlosabellanosa]

I think... you're great Rino. Sincere, responsible with your community, calm,... Thank you for the enormous amount of time in sharing your knowledge and progress.

[@KariposTheOne]

Great work! Matt should invest his time in making WP better instead of wasting it on unnecessary conflicts.

[@LytboxStudio]

This has been the most thought out coverage of the #wpdrama i've seen. I appreciate the time and care that went into an unbiased and honest overview of what's really a serious situation for us WP users.

[@rinodeboer]

Thank you brother 🙏🏼

[@savagenew]

Thanks Rino, this was very informative and explained quite a lot. As a user of both I'm appalled at how all this got out of hand and it has been completely unfair to all of us users, who has the power to shut them both down, and no one gets around this formula (ruined websites + users leaving by the droves = NO MORE WordPress or WP engine).

[@engagementerikanationbuild9334]

You did a great service by creating this video. I like the joking sponsorship too. Such a good way to make a point kindly.

[@tamasratkaihu]

Thank you Rino for putting so much time creating this video. ❤

[@PacoDelporte]

Great video, I completely agree with your analysis. If my company wasn't already using ACF Pro but the free version, I would have pushed to switch from SCF to ACF anyway. Finally, just for a detail question, at 24:54, you mention that WP Engine has created great plugins but the examples are not good. ACF was created by Eliott Condon in 2011 then bought by Delicious Brain in 2021 to land at WP Engine in 2022. Local was previously called Pressmatic then Local By Flywheel (bought in 2016) then finally just Local (bought by WP Engine in 2019)

[@matsiemahlo9129]

You doing great job Rino, I have just started watching your videos and I am truly learning alot about WordPress, Plugins and website design.

[@tobiwebdev826]

Thanks Rino, I felt more enlightened on the whole drama with your video. I hope they settle this drama soon and not chase us away from the system.

[@liviuc1946]

Very good points. I read some of the comments, the solution is not going to platforms that have higher risks in meddling with your content (like webflow or framer), solution is a wordpress v2, oriented to creating business websites, with a proper visual builder and decent pricing. I feel now its an aggressive model where every plugin on the market comes with 2 tiers, free and paid, and to get a decent solution going you have to pay about 5 or 6 subscriptions at least.

[@trattogatto]

This confirms that I made the right choice when I decided to use CMB2, and code my custom fields in the Child Theme, instead of relying on ACF.

[@iterateology]

My biggest issue with all of this is that the clients that pay people like us to set up, build, and maintain their websites - it's THEIR businesses are affected. They just want a website that works and they can publish new content as needed. Keeping things updated is the main way to keep our clients sites safe. I do currently have client sites hosted on WPE and it's really stressful.

[@wchorski]

while migrating isn't ideal, it shouldn't be too hard considering it's open source. I'm hoping this opens some doors to the smaller hosting providers that provide a better experience for a cheaper price

[@webberne]

As usual you communicate for us, the user, in mind... Thanks for taking the time Rino. Enjoy Bali :)

[@waynoswaynos]

Wow. I had no idea at all Rino. Thanks for telling this story. You made some great points. As a print designer with decades of commercial experience only very occasionally making a WP site for my clients. Sometimes it's a year or tree before I make another. Things changed so much its like starting again from scratch every time I come back. My gut feeling this time has been to battle on with a stock wordpress block theme like 2024 and not use any page builders, and free plugins. Just to future-proof my sites as much as possible so they hopefully still work in 10 years time. Avoiding all subscriptions just in case they can't be paid for at some point. And with any luck Figma will implement a 'Publish Site' button for wordpress requiring zero rebuilding time.

[@rinodeboer]

I think that's a smart approach, to focus on block themes for the future. Especially if you don't make a lot of websites.

[@rubenrojasg]

The only reason WP is a barely usable open-source platform is because for-profit companies have added functionality in the form of plugins. Without it, there's no chance they would be the industry standard right now. Matt as the owner of a for-profit company understands that, so all this tantrum is just a power move.

[@bramburn]

Poor become poor and rich become richer

[@rubenrojasg]

@bramburn zzzzzz

[@realJohnJohn]

wp engine os trash

[@joer48]

Plugins need WP to survive! Lol

[@ronwollschlaeger]

Thank you, for your time and your opinion/POV about this.

[@danherzl]

webflow and framer are loving this fight

[@orangedaisies]

They aren't going anywhere with their 2% market share 😂

[@anastoyanova6932]

@@orangedaisies they should be going up now :D

[@thebuildreview]

I am an ACF Pro user, but as a business owner I feel Silverlake have profited way beyond what is reasonable - riding on the coattails of Wordpress. If it wasn't for wordpress ACF wouldn't exist. This in my opinion is corporate greed being caught out. What is evident, and what you didn't cover in this video is the missed opportunity to call a truce and renegotiate. This is bad business management, particularly by Silverlake who have more to lose. Dumb.

[@Cyblinks]

Rino at times like this - we just need to go ahead and build the next best alternative. i think the research you did here is important, Thanks for that.

[@chickinatesla]

I've been so busy and dealing with hurricanes that I haven't made the time to suss this out. I so appreciate you explaining this is great detail. On one hand I can understand Matt's frustration seeing something flip to 'squeezing out the biggest return on their investment'. And on the other hand 'what about the people'!?

[@Tchekden]

Wasn't aware of this whole drama. Indeed, scary situation. Hopefully, the ship will continue its cruise... and keep us updated with your findings when swimming around 😉

[@sergio_grez]

Thank you Rino for this informative and useful video. As you say, reading about this issue has made me learn more about the platform i'm constantly using and how it works. Good and detailed information is always positive. Cheers!

[@heinvanvlastuin4954]

Dankjewel, Rino. I really appreciate your thorough and gentle analysis.

[@comleonmoto]

Wow Reno, what a nice report on this very strange situation! As always after watching yone of your videos I feel more clever and more cognizant. We need more intelligent and neutral thoughts like yours. Thank you.

[@DavidPrice51]

Great job, Rino. I learned a lot watching this.

[@emcarnahan]

Excellent post. Casual WP developer since 2012, and I thought I knew the territory 😄 I learned a lot.

[@kbce]

Great video, in Dutch: Goede samenvatting van wat er allemaal gebeurd is, zonder drama en met een open en positieve kijk, inclusief oplossingen!

[@PaulGillard-English-Artist]

Thanks for explaining the nuances of the politics going on here right now. Very helpful to know more of the dynamic from a users point of view too. You also made some great points for Wordpress improving in several areas, I thought.

[@GertAvikson]

Good and informative video, in the meantime I was thinking of starting to learn more about Wordpress, but now I don't know whether to wait or start researching some other platform more

[@larsjarredspeetjens]

21:00 the way I see this is that the market place is owned by Wordpress and in their own licensing agreement which WP Engine agreed to they signed that right away. Also Wordpress does not prohibit the use of any plugin since you can still install the WP versions manually.

[@modemlooper]

Your understanding of GPL wasn’t actually correct for paid plug-ins. They are also under GPL because most of them will include code from the core of WordPress, but all of the assets can be copyrighted.

[@rinodeboer]

Ah thank you. I wasn't 100% sure about that.

[@BarbaraDay]

Thanks for the overview and also for your point of view on the whole WordPress controversy that has been happening. It was very helpful.

[@mikegreen4619]

Thank you for the video. It clarifies some conflicting information in the marketplace. There is certainly a lot of blame to share.

[@zgo99]

Thank you Rhino for clearing things out. You did an absolutely great job.

[@colorsofgaia]

Haj. I was wondering, do you know why the menu in wordpress dissapear? I used to use header and footer alternative plug in but it only works on beaver

[@PeterParker-d2k]

Amazing content, Rino. Thank you!

[@zkiyyeller3525]

Thank you! Didn't know that about Gutenberg. Nicely done!

[@JosefRapaport]

Thank you very much Rino for this wonderful expose of what is happening behind the scenes

[@RemayPesca]

Thanks for putting together this video. Now I am more clear on what is going on.

[@rokk]

An amazing piece of work - thank you so much Rino :))))))

[@Tobwall]

Cheers to you for explaining this, really appreciate it!

[@kwsim539]

Mat didn't fork ACF. Mat took ownership of the main branch of the repo. Forking means you create a copy off of the main.

[@ThankfulI]

Love your content, and thank you for the breakdown. You mentioned that if we are morally against what they did, we can choose to use ACF if we want. Then you acknowledged that what Matt did isn’t morally okay and isn’t cool, but you're still using SCF because it’s ongoing (timestamp 39:50). Since you're using SCF, I’ll use it as well, and I think many others will too. Yes, we can make our own decisions, but when we watch someone who specializes in WordPress, most of us will tend to follow. Overall, Who ever we agree or disagree with SCF is a stronger product and will likely be a much better option than ACF in the future. Also, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes that we don’t know about and isn’t being discussed. Instead of painting Matt as a villain, I think it’s worth looking into his side of the story a bit more.

[@rinodeboer]

Thank you. For me, at the end of the day I care more about the experience of the tools I use than about what leaders are doing. Managing WordPress is already messy enough and so also having to update plugins from multiple sources is just too much to ask for me, especially if you run multiple websites. Its more about protecting my energy but at the same calling out something when things are not right, hoping that in the future this will not happen again. And lastly, I also said that if it turns out that this take over was illegal than we will be returned back to ACF anyways by just waiting. And yes, I also agree that there is a lot more happening in the background that we do not know, but I hope that you can also see in this video that I am not completely on one team. I did quite a bit of research and I think both sides made mistakes, and I said I do respect Matt for creating an amazing platform and protecting the vision of WP. Maybe over time I will grow more into supporting Matt, and maybe then its worth it to create another video, but at the moment this is where my head is at.

[@JayneB-q6m]

Thank you for this straight forward explanation, Rino. Have you tried Create Content Model yet?

[@masoodahmed4718]

it would have been a cherry on top of the cake if this video was sponsored by October CMS

[@celestialnubian]

Matt has destroyed so much trust, faith and respect in less than 2 months. Obviously, it won't be apparent to him immediately because our firm has hundreds of client sites on wordpress and many thousands of dollars invested in external plugins and our own custom code. The immediate effect is that we're now suspicious of anything that comes from Matt. In the long term, we will not be under Matt's tyranny so wordpress will be forked and actual competent open-source governance will be put in place or another CMS will rise.

[@davidadams421]

If you let people take the piss, you set a precedent that it's OK to take the piss - and then everybody loses. I think Matt is right to take a stand; the line has to be drawn somewhere. And to those impacted, including me, grow a pair ffs. You've made use of this completely free product, for your own commercial gain in most cases (here's looking at you web agencies), and the moment things become mildly irritating, you drop your support?! There's an old saying, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' - you should be ashamed of yourselves. Has he handled everything perfectly? No, nobody's perfect ffs. Now is the time to give back to what we all have exploited over many years. I for one support Matt and will continue to do so whilst I'm making money off the back of his life's work. And to WP Engine ... this is an easy fix, show some fucking respect.

[@themclloyd]

It's open source software, but it appears to be a personal power struggle that doesn't concern customers. There are also concerns that he may target other companies, like Elementor.

[@mirza-sky9]

Other companies just need to give back at least 3% of their annual income to the platform that is there, and if that platform was not there Elementor plugin nor company would ever exist. They just need to be less greedy all of them and there would be no issues.

[@themclloyd]

@@mirza-sky9 well expalanation sir, i agree with you

[@pulp5618]

I have a question that I think you can answer, Rino. Why shouldn't we use nulled premium plugins? Aren't all the wordpress plugins under GPL law?

[@arnelgo3777]

Thank you for explaining everything on neutral ground.

[@Chris...S]

What a lot don't know is the real reason behind all this. Which is when Matt abandoned WPE he tried to coarse Heather Brunner, CEO of WPE to join him at Automatic. When that backfired, he set this temper tamper and vendetta with WPE in motion.

[@ivolol]

If you want other people who use your free, open-source, available-to-modify-and-build-on platform to do so in a very specific and self-supported way... well then make a *non-FOSS* license that specifically demands that. If you want your logo, branding and trademarks be extremely carefully controlled so that you can shun anyone who you think "aren't doing right by you", don't specifically offer them for free use. If you want one company benefiting from your product to give you 8% of their profit but you also want all other companies to give back only 5%, you are a biased tyrant who wants to be _seen_ to operate under the open-source ethos, but not actually _have_ to, because you *don't* want to treat all users, both commercial and private, fairly.

[@maxammo2811]

Very Well explained 👍

[@nosheenkhan-g8u]

Thank you Rino for explaining it very well but what plugin can we use as a replacement of ACF. Is Secure Custom Fields then please make a tutorial for this. Waiting for your precious reply :)

[@d.o.nmuzic3802]

Great video. And very informative. Thank you

[@JanWessels]

How can WordPress stay innovative when users are not participating to contribute financially? Maybe users should first look into the mirror before blaming others for creating this mess. Maybe we all should grow up and take our responsibility for the future of WordPress.

[@DezFutak]

Thanks Rino - realy measured & helpful response!

[@bakeraus]

I understand the business squabble, but that should never affect the customers on their/our side. Matt has dragged the customer into the fire because he's burning. The saying would be "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" I'm going to learn Framer and Webflow. Also, I moved from Elementor to Breakdance, and I really like the look of Bricks. New Relume features looks very rich and a nice workflow.

[@nasvcp]

A lot of what I know I owe it to you! Thanks man!

[@ace2044]

Thank you, your videos are great!

[@Janzer_]

glad you're covering this. to me yes, it made things worse.

[@UncleBroer]

The GPL does not mean "free of charge," although it is generally accepted to mean that. You can charge for it if you want to. It's stated clearly in the preamble of the license.

[@nickm1049]

How much of Automattic's contributions are on Matt's pet projects like the awful Gutenberg and barely used block themes?

[@Brawlstriker89]

I’m so glad I learned how to code rather than using drag n drop sites like Wordpress. I have so much more control and can do far more then people restricted by the plugins and extensions of Wordpress. You’re heavily restrained to others ideas.

[@tonybp]

Hi. How long would it take you to build an ecommerce website programming everything? I'm not being a dolt, I'm really curious. I've been told it would take ages and that's why WP would be such a better option but I'd like to know your opinion.

[@Brawlstriker89]

@ depends on the scope and the features that you’d want implemented. But building it yourself without Wordpress would also be cheaper

[@celestialnubian]

@Brawlstriker89 You just exposed that you're a newbie and know nothing about wordpress or any other CMS. Real developers don't use CMS for "drag n drop".

[@orangedaisies]

​@@Brawlstriker89 Dude.. You have no idea what you're talking about and clearly know nothing about WordPress.

[@Brawlstriker89]

@ I have made sites with Wordpress… have made countless websites. With and without Wordpress: that’s why I feel qualified to talk about it. That’s with my computer science degree and two years of honor roll in the subject. Think I know what I’m sayin

[@shiva_trilooks]

Well I have to say tho that Framer has pretty solid servers that I do not have to pay external. The client only has to pay for the framer Sub, everything on one spot. Idk I like it. edit: But you are right, WP is pretty good also, thinking of implementing both options for my clients

[@rinodeboer]

Yea, interesting. I am excited to explore other tools next year for a better workflow. But I just had to mention the limitations of Framer in this video regarding something simple as analytics.

[@jkontosgr]

Great Rino🎉

[@soundlycreative]

I first thought that Matt was wrong, then I read his detailed blog and I totally understand why he did it. It seems rough, but makes sense.

[@nickm1049]

One of few people who evolved in that direction, most started supporting Matt and then turned against his rash decisions

[@soundlycreative]

@ it’s shows my lack of understanding probably. But my reasoning is that they didn’t respond and didn’t stop using the Wordpress mark. All they had to do was kick in some $, right? So that’s why I flipped.

[@nickm1049]

​@@soundlycreativethey have every right to use WP in their name and almost every hosting company on the planet sells "WordPress hosting". They were already paying, the 8% of revenue is insane for a company with actual costs, as he admits, nobody pays that. There's videos countering Matt's post and also going over all the other dodgy things he did e.g. trying to hire WPE's CEO and then blackmailing her when she didn't want to come work for Matt. Or the banning rampage he's on in WP Slack channels, WP contributors that worked years for free are getting banned for not agreeing with him. Or the blocking he's doing on Twitter, well known WP creators are getting blocked for speaking up

[@soundlycreative]

@@nickm1049 dang! Thx for the info. Fingers crossed that he doesn’t mess things up more.

[@nickm1049]

@@soundlycreative Indeed. This might help his hosting companies (WPcom & Pressable), but he's hurting the WP community. Hopefully somebody can get through to him, to stop all this.

[@HikaruAkitsuki]

The entire general developer community and even Linux community is observing this drama.

[@sproksch87]

Rino, Thank u so much :)

[@paschal4]

41:51 Explore more too, will it be Webflow and framer

[@d.o.nmuzic3802]

I understand the principles Matt is fighting for. But his actions exposed other worrisome issues. 1. When one man with a lot of power becomes driven completely by emotion, his actions can disrupt a lot of lives in a bad way. 2. The fact that one man has that much control with no guard rails (wp or president) is extremely dangerous and will also impact many lives in a very negative way

[@danielsrogulis6685]

So on point with WordPress UX issues. Thank you for such a detailed & objective video! Hope to see WordPress getting better.

[@Idaho86]

The whole point of open source is to give user freedom. It always was about end users and always will be about benefits to end users. I understand Matt, I understand where he's coming from. I think his heart is in the right place, but he took it a little bit too far. The moment this whole drama started to effect end users was that moment when he should stop and look for other ways. This whole thing is a mess and there is a risk we will look at this moment in 10 years as "the moment when wordpress ended".

[@13caban]

Well said !!!!

[@therealchrif]

Matt is right about all of this. Shout-out to Matt. Keep doing the right thing Matt

[@avipro737]

Well, I just got off WP. I have lost about €15000 in the WP ecosystem, but I sucked it up and now moved to Framer to stay away from the sinking ship of WP and leave the one-person drama.

[@iamXnl]

well.. with any plugin author charging $99 for "support" and updates for a 6 lines of code plugin that has more secrurity holes than a swiss cheese.. yeah.. we're not on the right path here..

[@carltongordon]

that disclaimer is vital for not getting blocked 🤣🤣🤣

[@webtappers7863]

Thank you Rino

[@gilliamdodoo1094]

we are just saying Matt needs to focus on making WP better... but without the contributions its going to be difficult to make things better without the resources. WP Engine just has to do a little better for the entire community.

[@nandrz]

Wordpress merchandise made on Shopify engine (not Woocommerce) - what a twist! :)

[@aydendankworth]

Your birthday boy comparison was interesting because i feel like the birthday boy has the full right to kick you out when you are not behaving to his standards. Even if some attendees do not agree.

[@capthymer2177]

Wordpress is becoming too big, slow and clustered and getting worst!!! I am looking for alternatives.

[@honeypeadigital]

Imo, the free plugins dont need to be in the repository. I got all my recommendations from youtube content. Every single one of my plugins. None of them were recommendations from the plugins page. Even my integrate google drive plugin was not from the plugin page. So they may as well host it externally like how ACF is now.

[@oaooaoipip2238]

So Matt pretty much told WP engine to go fork themselves?

[@markvdp3690]

Best sponsor ever!

[@JorgeMarquezIO]

I believe every piece of the elementor plugin is GPL, same with every single plugin and theme based on wordpress... The part that is not GPL is the templates and the update service... The code itself is GPL, but they own the template's copyright and of course, the update is a service, not part of the plugin directly....

[@JorgeMarquezIO]

From their own terms and conditions page: "Elementor is a free software released under the GPLv3 license. When using the Elementor and Elementor Pro software, you receive all rights granted under the GPL. These Terms of Service do not govern your use of the Elementor and Elementor Pro software, but your services received from Elementor Ltd. " With elementor pro you are technically only buying their services, not the plugin itself...

[@rinodeboer]

I didn’t know. Thanks for clarifying. I thought its only for the free plugins.

[@GigaBuzzStore]

WP hosting there for one website £16.00 per month = £192.00 a year.! No comment...

[@schipperijn]

Great video

[@obvinpro]

Rino we're here watching a 43mins video, and you were asking us if we're investing.. 😢. WordPress or nothing bro

[@rinodeboer]

😆

[@virtual5754]

There are actually lots of alternatives to use instead. Wordpress is just the best at "no code no brain 1 click install" for blog sites for non technical users. Everything beyond that requires certain technical actions, which are more complex than 99% of what alternatives offer natively. Treat wordpress for what it is - (pretty poorly done) blogging platform, not universal site builder

[@DatsunMan80]

Ha ha ha, I love your sponsored ad :P

[@heikorudi6105]

he is playing with fire. he has a foundation, but acts like a company by demanding money for service (wordpress framework). That could cost him the non-profit status, and he will be paying taxes.

[@orangedaisies]

You need to rewatch the video.

[@enezar]

Thanks for info

[@HomeTV-gp4fb]

Can anyone write the conclusion? We shall relay our career with WP or not? In future, the WP will collapse?

[@gregorywint]

Be careful of the sharks as you go for a swim

[@marcoripon3349]

I want to work on you agency bro 😊

[@ankurjain1773]

This is Scary 😢