https://www.youtube.com/live/vEcz7DrjYvY?si=eu23CQsh68bAoJmq
Just finished WordCamp US. Everyone left in a very weird mood. Matt started his talk pretty good and then it quickly turned to him name dropping WP Engine and their parent company. He showed the CEO on screen and suggested that people leave WP Engine. Honestly, whether they deserve it or not, it felt like the wrong time to do it. The whole place immediately picked sides. I understand that no one likes the big investor. I understand they don't have the project or the customer in mind. But, is open source. They can do whatever they want. It sucks that they are squeezing customers and using the open source software that we all love but, it comes with the territory. I just saw it live a few minutes ago and I really don't know how I feel. I just don't feel like I left wordCamp on a high note this year. Not the best feeling.
Sorry about the timestamp. I'm walking and posting. Starts at about 7:15 in on the video.
A timestamp would be useful, it’s 8 hours long
It was unexpected, I will grant you that. However, given some details, I believe it was somewhat justified? I do not have any information on what talks were had before this.
Pretty interesting to see him up on a high horse about companies misusing open source when Automattic does the very same things he accuses others of doing. Going after Meta is odd considering how much of WordPress is on React now. How many man hours has Automattic put into the React project?
I don’t use WP Engine. I never liked hosting services that are metered on a pay per X visitors basis. That said, we live in an open market where people can choose who they want to give their money to and where businesses are generally free to provide their services in a manner that works for them. People who are fed-up with WP Engine are free to write about their experience and to move to another hosting service.
Has Matt spoken well of WP Engine on stage before? If he has then I have no issue with him using time on stage to tell people he’s changed his opinion of WP Engine otherwise he should have written his new opinions into a blog post and started a list of not recommended hosts on wordpress.org. I’m not okay with Matt using his status in the WordPress world to go on stage to outright tell his captivated audience to escape from a company’s grip, if that is what he did; that’s what Twitter’s for.
Matt is pointing out the bully and bad behavior of Silver Lake Capital, the private equity firm that took over the majority ownership of WP Engine. He showed the history of Silver Lake’s behaviors and is warning the WordPress ecosystem that WP Engine is next.
He is not picking on WPE the company, he is warning us of the very bad behavior of the private equity firm that owns the majority of WPE, and advising us that if you use WPE, you might want to consider moving your sites elsewhere and choosing different plugins that the ones WPE owns.
Can someone fill me in on the parent company? I’m out of the loop and google is strangely not helping.
I was at the talk today and have so many questions on the details and why Matt chose to single out WP Engine. The argument was Automattic and WP Engine have roughly the same revenue of half a billion a year. The core contribution from Automattic is thousands of hours a week and WP Engine has 47 hours week (updated to 40 hours a week) in comparison.
What I find confusing and not clear is what expectation is put on any company to give back to core and what are the parameters to decide if a company is going to be singled out and boycotted based on their lack of participation? What are the expectations for companies profiting from open source to give back? Hasn’t the contributions to core done on a volunteer basis? What are the details leading up to Matt’s decision to penalize and boycott WP Engine.
I’m going to the after party tonight and will see if I can find out any answers.
I use ACF in all of my client sites. I’m not about to undo them all.
What’s the negatives with wp engine? Genuinely asking. I have used them for 8 years to manage over 85 clients websites. They have hands down the best support out there.
Whoa. He is literally telling people to leave WP Engine.
What is his beef with WPE?
Ooof, that question later – after Matt (bizarrely) tries to link the drop in WP Core contributions in 2018 to the WPEngine takeover from SilverLake
*”Are you sure it wasn’t due to the release of Gutenberg”.*
Bingo.
edit: and then another question (https://youtu.be/vEcz7DrjYvY?t=28986) – “can you please clear up what’s happening with the Classic Editor plugin EOL date so people aren’t being taken advantage of”
Matt: “yeah, huh, I don’t want to defend the Classic Editor – maybe they just should upgrade to blocks”.
WTF. Tone deaf. Read the room Matt.
Count on a 20% price increase the first year, followed by 10% and package capability reductions.
I _know_ I didn’t just hear him say “WP Engine bad, and Newfold good”…
ACF is the only product i use from wp engine
Other than that never really got tempted to pay wp engine price for no reason
I guess acpt will become my second choice if ACF starts to get influenced