Thoughts on Kevin Geary’s criticism on the direction of WordPress?

Some of you might have seen this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuaabXY5atE

In it, Geary believes that WordPress needs to make some major changes in order to stay relevant. He proposes five things that need to happen:

  1. WordPress leadership needs to recommit to the core of the product, the content management system.
  2. There needs to be a freeze on all new major features for the site editor and block editor so that the team can focus on improving user experience and stability.
  3. The admin UI needs to be fully unified and modernized.
  4. The WordPress community needs to recommit to higher standards, craftsmanship, thought leadership, and innovation.
  5. A new project called Etch needs to be implemented.

Now clearly, he's selling this project Etch, not sure what that's all about, so it's pretty clickbaity, but I was wondering what people thought of his other criticisms in general.

41 Comments

  2. I don’t have time to watch the video right now, but the points you outlined all make sense (besides whatever “Etch” is). Compared to other options on the market, WP is quite behind on usability and ease of use IMO. 

    WP is easy for me because I’ve used it for 5 years, but if someone with little to no tech/IT skills were to ask me what they should use to build their site themselves, I’d recommend they use something like Squarespace or Shopify (if it’s an e-commerce site). 

  3. I do agree, but it all feels just like a big marketing setup for Etch. Not a problem I think, but I’m not a fan of creating hype this way.

  4. I see some of the creators push towards changes in wordpress, all in the same time – which leads me to believe it’s somewhat coordinated. Which is a good thing, as only a group of influential individuals can make it happen.

    I don’t know about the proposed changes, as some of them are vague, and some I find less relevant as a long time user.

    What is true is that wordpress is a complacent cash mastodon, and that needs to change. Gutenberg and the block editor failed, and I don’t blame them for insisting on it, but too much time passed, and making them work is too slow.

    They don’t seam to have a philosophy for going forward, and what we already have is good, but all over the place, and some of it is stale. There are platforms that are popping left and right that look modern, have a better feel or a better workflow. wp is still better, but that don’t mean much for newcomers.

    WordPress needs a complete overhaul, but I don’t know how feasible that is – as it needs a clear idea for going forward, and a lot of time and money.

  5. This guy is ridiculous. He should have said that WordPress works fine on its own and there are less and less needs for the people to hire a developer or designer because it’s so easy to use.

    That’s the point of WordPress! He simply wants people to buy his products but as time goes on more and more won’t need them.

    WordPress is running 50% of all websites created and probably more. It’s not dying it’s literally becoming the standard.

    I cheer for my clients when they can do it for themselves. I love consulting and helping them learn copywriting and SEO, thank God I don’t have to create child themes anymore!

  6. There is this strange belief that same processes and people who produced Gutenberg can “fix” Gutenberg into something wonderful if only they do… something.

    The whole block editor thing started on the premise that mainline WP project, with little JS expertise beyond jQuery and firmly entrenched on third party TinyMCE editor it didn’t create, is capable of moving on to produce “best in the world” JavaScript and excellent novel greenfield combined content editor and page builder.

    Did not happen.

    But somehow the belief had survived. Will happen. Any year now. They should just stop doing X and do Y and it will come out GREAT. Like… they would if they could?

    If you keep making Gutenberg you will keep getting Gutenberg.

    If you keep squeezing for free labor and discouraging progress in your development community, you will keep it from advancing.

    “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

  7. He’s a very opinionated and polarizing voice in the space, but I don’t see how anybody can argue with points 1-4. Every update recently has been focused on the block editor, when it’s pretty obvious that at least half, and probably more, of the users of the platform don’t like it. And we’re 6 years into it and still have that problem.

    Update the CMS please! Improve the interface. It’s dated and a disjointed mess right now when paired with Gutenberg. Improve the media library. Include custom post types, custom post statuses, custom fields into core. Update TinyMCE. All things that could be done to improve the CMS.

    I’d personally like to see Gutenberg an opt-in feature, rather than stock. But, if that’s not the case I want some kind of built-in setting to switch it off completely…all the functionality, styles, scripts, etc. Not some of them, ALL of them. With one checkbox.

  8. I’m just wondering why they’re going the React route instead of integrating more with Laravel.

  9. I agree with all of it. I also agreed with WPTuts on the UX nightmare WordPress has become. 

    All resources are being put into the block editor, yet very few even want to use it. It is a simple editor, yet hard to use. The worst of both worlds. Most people use page builders for the exact opposite experience and it works fine. But we cannot just download a new CMS, and that is being neglected heavily by WordPress. 

    I don’t know what etch is or if it will fix anything, but I’m very hopeful it will. I hate the current path of WordPress…

  10. Assuming that one uses WordPress as a general framework, and also expands upon the core features via the use of plugins and general customisation, does the “criticism on the direction of WordPress” still carry a tonne of weight?

  11. > The admin UI needs to be fully unified and modernized.

    Can’t really argue with that. Shouldn’t have to use multiple plugins to try to tidy it up.

  12. The very first thing I do when I start a WordPress project I install the Classic Editor plugin and disable Gutenberg 😂😂

  14. He is far from my favorite YT guy, but he’s 100% right. WP devs are far behind the competition, Gutenberg sucks, and the building platforms are too tribal and not open minded to other options.

    Also, have to put blame on educators, software ads, and employers. They are taught that Framer, Figma, and Webflow are the end all be all.

    But take him and many others with a grain of salt. These guys are grifters trying to sell their own products and philosophies that fall in line with the products. These add-on frameworks feel like the NFTs of WP.

  15. I think Etch is a kind of Material Design, but it’s a design system specifically built for WordPress. Developers can use it as a foundation to create interfaces for dashboards, plugins, and theme management. WordPress really needs well-built patterns and a unified user experience

  16. WordPress wants to have it all: it wants to be better than Wix, Weebly, Shopify and all the others. Greed is why.

    But they are killing the soul of WordPress, they are killing the brand, the system, everything.

    They should stick to their core indeed. Can WordPress freely be forked and stripped of Gutenberg and other useless things?

  17. So far FSE has been a huge disappointment. The Admin/Ui for it is beyond terrible. Blocks seem like a good idea in theory but in practice they simply are klunky and hard for non-technical people to easily use.

    I also don’t know why the push for React in WP but here we are. I think it is much easier to make custom blocks with ACF Pro.

  18. My biggest criticism has been, and continues to be, the push of Gutenberg as the editor. It isn’t intuitive and it’s clunky. The first thing I do on a new install is install the Classic Editor. Most of my client base would be unable to use Gutenberg and are happy with just the Classic Editor for their needs. And for those who need more, even a backend editor like WPBakery or Divi is pushing the limits. Most clients are too busy trying to run their businesses to try to learn how to edit their website; it should be easy for any business owner to log in and make content changes.

  20. Geary is great marketer. He launched this campaign to push his new product “Etch”, which he has not fully explained yet, but sounds like will be his own Full Site Editor, using the WP’s engine and database as opposed to its interface. Sounds cool, and sounds like a better way to implement an FSE.

  21. Does this guy have a .org profile that demonstrates he’s contributed to the project in some way? I can’t find him. I’d like to believe he’s tried, but I see no evidence.

  22. Gutenberg and general editing is a disjointed mess. Unless you are doing a few, like very few pages/posts, this is a horrible production platform.

  23. So this is basically a big rant on WordPress escpecially Gutenberg but oh wait, his product is going to save all?

    Not convinced. Very suspicious about this guy. I don’t trust this for a second. Marketing at it’s best, but the content lacks body.

  24. Gutenberg has been the worst decision WordPress has ever made. It’s like they are fighting what users want. Catering to the 1% power users who can utilize Gutenberg with their advanced css knowledge but most can’t.

  25. When people say “recommit to the core of the product” what do they want to see improved other than the admin UI?

  26. It’s like they never used an iphone or saw the incredible growth of wix. These two things show what really matters…user experience. If you master that, you will see adoption explode. Make it clunky and complicated, and you will be stuck in no man’s land of soft dev and power user.

    If the experience is layered, like simple interface like wordpressdtcom, with options to go deeper and deeper into dev capabilities, but that is so hard to do.

  28. Gutenberg is fantastic if you’re already well versed in CSS but I agree it’s not as intuitive as it could be for users who aren’t web developers.

  30. I spoke to Matt Mullenweg right around the time Gutenberg was replacing the “classic” editor and was surprised when he said he was worried about competition from Wix and Medium. Personally, I think the problem with WordPress is that we’re trying to make one WordPress for two communities.

    1. DIY website owners and bloggers (people that would use Wix and Medium)
    2. Professional web designers building websites for other businesses

    I know plugin and theme developers who essentially quit building for WordPress because it is so hard to know WHO you’re really building for and what environment your plugin will be operating in.

  31. The big problem is that no effort at all is going into the block *editor.* Into block technology, sure, and to extending the scope of block tech into, say, themes. But the actual editor’s user interface and (especially) user experience? The core team’s general attitude towards user experience seems to be “just use Visual Studio to fill in all the gaps.”

    I just keep getting back to that post on make.wordpress.org where the dev team bragged about building the (then new) WordPress.org homepage.

    >Implementing the full design will require building some custom blocks and customizing existing core blocks. That work will take place in the GitHub repo.
    Source: https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/08/01/developing-the-redesigned-home-and-download-pages/#comment-9362

    If you visited the page you’d have seen… nothing even slightly special. Nothing you couldn’t have built in maybe an hour with the oldest, clumsiest page builder. Because even clumsy old page builders have adequate controls and a minimal set of block equivalents that would let you do those things out of the box.

    Bottom line is that with *any* other editor you definitely wouldn’t have to build custom blocks or customize exiting core blocks because, unlike the core Gutenberg team, every other editor understands that the vast, vast majority of editor users didn’t at least a minor in computer science.

    For anyone who should routinely be posting here instead of /r/ProWordPress that’s just plain wrong. (WordPress pros are great, but this subreddit is where normal users tend to look first.)

  32. I agree.

    The classic editor is becoming the most important plugin cuz this React js highjacking is garbage.

  34. Gutenberg has been a disaster since day 1 which in turn has limited WP growth and technical abilities. It’s become a point where I don’t think WP is always the best CMS tool to use anymore because other solutions are far more powerful with authentication/access, db queries, CSS management, versioning, workflow, and core development capabilities. So if I’m going to be required to become more of a developer to build custom blocks to extend WP and manage code, I might as well just look at alternative tech and build what I need, reuse over time.

    So etch, another page builder concept that will copy Oxygen, Breakdance, and Bricks which have provided the essence of powerful page/template building, but nobody wants to wait 1-3 years for something to become mature. It’s taken what like 18 months for Breakdance to get to a usable version and they had Oxygen as the basis to develop a next gen page builder, and I still have discomfort in trusting it’s ready to go.

    WP is not nimble enough to make huge technical changes fast, just too big of an open source project and the impacts to prior versions and plugins creates monstrous combability problems so were on the slow boat to innovation. If the roadmap for gutenberg and WordPress looks bleak to you, start looking outside of WP today because it’s not really going to change fast.

  35. I have stated before that WordPress is primarily driven by the .com arm these days and it all drops into .org whether it’s wanted or not. I wholeheartedly agree that WP is no longer built for professionals but for everyone and that is just a mess.

    The level of application isn’t cohesive even in the block editor. It is a decent start, but most people (clients) that have to update the company website don’t want to explore new layouts, need blocks, etc. they are doing “production”, and a lot of it. So they need to get a job done and quickly. For that the classic editor is still the best method as it clearly defines what goes where. Its ‘fill out a form’.

    As for the hobbyist or DIY business goes, the block editor is a decent option as there are already a lot of pre built components, however the options to make changes are buried too deep in some cases and not cohesive enough. Block themes aim to change this and to define color schemes, etc. and some site wide patterns but it’s a mess, esp the UI. It’ll turn people off because Squarespace makes it easier. Yes, no comparison really, but from the naive user there is no difference: you get a web page.

    For the professional who builds block themes: how to you change the design of a block that has already been used 100s of times in a current site but not edit every single page (and not scaring the customer with ‘the block had an error’ messages)? Well you don’t. (Brad Schiff has a pho driven FSE them example which IMHO is the better path forward). Again, bad experience. Heck, currently the ‘best’ way to build a bloick theme is IN wordpress and then EXPORT it… Ugh.

    There is a reason someone spent a lot of time as designer, typesetter, programmer, mechanic, electrician – to have the experience necessary to make choices of what is really beneficial for the end use case.

    Lastly and maybe most importantly, when is the last time you did your own root canal (Dentist in a Box anyone)? So, why do all the current tools need to appeal to everyone? This ‘democratization’ is design-by-committee, and a terrible idea. Target a user group, heck create a secondary user group that addresses some of those issues and present it as a different version (what WordPress.com is trying to do), but leave the ‘professionals’ version for professionals. It’s the professional programmers that primarily have extended WordPress, not Automattic.

    Yes, it’s more effort but cleaner and provides a better user experience. Heck even Wix has seen this and started to built separate tools. WIX!! There is the WordPress Foundation (sadly headed by the dude himself to make decisions) and then there ic Classic Press, which aims to do just that but lacks the leaderhip and funding.

    While I would prefer this not to be a part of a marketing ploy and I think he may have purchased Cwicly… this does not change his or any ones points here on the current state of WP.

    But what do I know. I haven’t been doing this for two decades. I’m going out to buy my own DIY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, what could go wrong…

    edit: spelling and grammar, ’cause mobile

  36. The whole Block Editor saga reads like the rather common corporate hubris many companies fall in. Too often it follows from overambitious creatives that want to leave their own mark and/or to deserve their (higher) pay. New is not necessarily better. IMO, leaving php behind for javascript is a fatal error of judgement. The ingeniously powerful and still straightforward concept of PHP hooks is what made WordPress and its ecosystem successful, prolific, and resilient, compared to the other CMS’s.

  37. None of that shit is going to happen because no one can agree on shit at the end of the day. The community come together for higher standards?? LOL

  38. After 18 years of being exclusive with WordPress, I’m tired of waiting for anything to change. We’re actively looking to replace WordPress.

    I recently built a site on High Level and it was refreshing to not have to worry about hosting, themes, plugins, compatibility, and worrying if my tools that I am using are going to get raided by Awesome Motive.

    I’m tired boss, and I constantly feel like Automattic is just competing against professionals.

    The community is dying. Time to move on.

  39. Regardless of whether what they’re saying is true/important/urgent or not:

    * If a person cares about something, they’ll contribute to improve it
    * If someone cares about making money first, they’ll tell you all the ways you’re doing things wrong, not contribute the solutions, and create competition (that divides the userbase and worsens the situation for personal gain)

    There is no reason for improvements to not be monetizable while still contributing to the growth of the original project without “trying to take it down a notch”. You can make money and not come across like a dick.

    Everything he writes is marketing. The homepage of Etch contains nothing of technical substance, just marketing (“100x”, “biggest announcement”, “just getting warmed up”, “the next three years are going to be wild”).

    I’m just not the audience for that. Even if I agree that some areas in WP need attention.

  40. Yeah, it’s a solid plan. He offers great content that in turn drives his sales. 🙏

    Too bad for me I don’t do enough WordPress projects to justify all the plugins needed to match his blueprint setup, but who knows someday.

  41. I agree with a lot of what he said. Gutenberg was a really poorly executed feature, which has been dragging the WordPress system down for years. What they should have done is they should have refreshed or remade the entire system from ground up. Simplified things, and implemented features which many plugins now offer. Things like cpt, dynamic data handling, advanced forms, things like snippets handling, proper image compression, caching, elements features like many site builders have. They could even implement an app-store of sorts for plugins, an update to what’s available now. This would allow plugin developers to have more exposure to the public, and at the same time they’d be held to higher standards to ensure that what they put out is good quality, and secure. WordPress gets a percentage of sales, and everyone wins.

    Seeing what a disaster Gutenberg has been, I doubt that the WordPress team has the ability to implement any of that unless they do what’s asked of them in parts 1 and 2 about recommitting to the core, and putting a freeze on Gutenberg. It would take time, but the how-to information is already out there. They’d just have to dedicate time and resources to put all of this together.

 

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