💾 Archived View for gemini.abiscuola.com › gemlog › wordpress-drama.gmi captured on 2024-12-17 at 10:07:40. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Matt Mullenweg in all his glory.
I'm looking a bit from the side to what's happening in the wordpress world, for the simple reason that I used to work for an hosting provider where, at the time, the majority of websites ran on Wordpress. Because of this, I perfectly know that the consequences of Automattic's CEO, Matt Mullenweg are huge all around the world.
To date, between 40 and 50% of all the interent websites are powered by Wordpress. An enourmous amount of hosting providers are heavily invested into the wordpress ecosystem due to customer demands. Some actively contributes to the Wordpress development, however, the majority are there for a free ride, given that Wordpress is freely available and released under the GPLv2.
When the numbers are this huge, a tantrum by the CEO's of the company developing the main product is going to send many, many shockwaves around the hosting world. many, many administrators are re-assessing, right now, their priorities, thinking that, the next time, Mullenweg could come to them with some bad publicity. Professionals all-around the world, are already reporting that they are losing business due to the current drama. Customers are re-evaluating Wordpress as a platform to build their websites due to what's going on.
Yes, the damage is that huge. All because a single individual has a gripe with a competitor.
But in the end, what's the matter? To understand it, we need to first check why Automattic targeted WPEngine specifically, and not any other hosting provider out there, even bigger than WPE itself, making money also by hosting Wordpress websites.
To start, Automattic and WPEngine have the same business model: hosting wordpress websites specifically. The main difference is that Automattic is the main developer of Wordpress itself, with WPEngine contributing to it by both releasing plugins, and by dedicating staff to the development of Wordpress "Core". Looks reasonable, right? Automattic and the Wordpress foundation are the main stewards for the project, while others builds on top of it, creating a vibrant ecosystem.
However, WPEngine makes more money than Automattic itself and Mullenweg doesn't like it.
WPEngine executed on Automattic's business model better than Automattic itself. They have more customers and probably higher profit margins, while contributing, of course, much less compared to Automattic to the Wordpress development. Automattic drives the Wordpress project, of course, and they also can prioritize whatever could be a business advantage for them. However, Mullenweg's ego can not accept that somebody is doing a better job than him. In Mullenweg's eyes, WPEngine is "profiteering" from Automattic's work and that's why, he claims, the trademark licensing is needed. To establish some equilibrium and force WPEngine to contribute more.
I don't see it like that.
Having worked at an hosting provider before, let me tell you that the competion is fierce. The margins are razor-thin, and every day somebody, somewhere, will offer a "infinite something" to undercut the competition. In essence, the only way to grow your revenues in the hosting world, is by acquiring as many customers as possible. All the offers by all the hosting providers are the same and it's not weird, in the end, to see "wordpress hosting" being actively advertised along with "Joomla hosting" or "Drupal hosting".
What I suspect is that, Automattic's market is saturated and there is no growth potential anymore.
That's why Mullenweg is turning to try and extract money from WPEngine specifically. Not to "help develop wordpress", but to grow the company. WPEngine is the obvious first target for such a move because:
Mullenweg WANTS WPEngine's money (that's why he demands an absurd 8% of gross revenue) and he also wants it's customers. The market is saturated and now, if he wants to grow, he must steal other companies customers. All of his actions, albeit bad, points in that direction: "See? WPEngine is bad, come to us, we do the same thing, it's easy to migrate". I would not be surprised if, in the back, Mullenweg is trying to actively negotiate with WPEngine customers, while the official narrative is all about "trademark licenses".
There is no more cake to grow, so, he need to steal other people pieces and, given also the clear conflict of interest Mullenweg has in how he handle the wordpress foundation, he's trying whatever he can to get rid of his main competitor. I strongly believe that Automattic will prefer to see WPEngine disappear to reap all of their customers than to receive that fat 8% of their revenues, in the end.
My opinion? If you are big enough, watch out, Mullenweg could come after you, if my hypothesis is right. He needs new customers, his company is stagnating and he decided it's hight time to milk the ecosystem he has built over time.
