Dear WordPress

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Hey fellow WordPressers, my name is Kevin Geary.

I am the CEO of Digital Gravy, the founder of Automatic CSS, and the creator of Frames.

I’m also a web design educator, and I was an agency owner for many, many years before we shifted our focus to software.

At the beginning of September, which is right around the corner, I’m going to be holding a series of private live streams, announcing an exciting new project for the WordPress ecosystem called Etch.

Now this is going to be a highly, highly anticipated announcement.

As of this video, there are already thousands of WordPress users on the Etch waiting list, and for very good reason.

If you know anything about me, you know that our products don’t just aim to do things a little bit better than they’ve been done in the past.

No, the mission of my company and the mission of our team is to fundamentally transform the landscape of front-end development in WordPress.

We did that with Automatic CSS by redefining what a CSS framework is, what a framework can do, and what scalable, maintainable web design should look like in the modern era.

We did that with Frames by redefining how professional agency work can get done 60 to 70% faster while improving quality and protecting creativity.

And we’re going to continue bringing fundamental innovation to the entire WordPress ecosystem with Etch over the next one to three years.

Now to understand why we’re announcing Etch and why it’s so desperately needed, we do need to talk about the current state of WordPress.

For all the great things that WordPress has done over the last 20 years, there’s been many great things.

The current state of WordPress as we speak right now is this.

WordPress is unfortunately losing its dominance in the market at an alarming rate.

While the market share of existing websites is still high, the percentage of new projects, understand this, the percentage of new projects being started with WordPress is drastically low, drastically low relative to where it used to be and to where it needs to be.

Additionally, search interest for WordPress has declined sharply.

There’s been a 74% decrease in articles published about WordPress from within our own ecosystem.

These three metrics are powerful leading indicators that do not bode well for the years ahead.

We are seven years into the Gutenberg project.

It’s still not ready for prime time.

It’s actually not even close unless of course you’re passionate about working in multiple development environments, wrangling complex languages and syntaxes and dealing with frustrating architectural decisions.

The approval rating of Gutenberg appears to be at one of its lowest points since inception.

And to make matters worse, it actually feels like it’s starting to undermine the approval rating of WordPress in general.

Less than 50% of WordPress users say that the site editor meets their needs for building websites.

And the second most installed plugin in the WordPress repo is still the classic editor, just as it’s been since the day the block editor was installed as the native editor in WordPress.

The diversion of focus and resources to Gutenberg has taken a huge toll on the content management system.

The CMS of course is the part of WordPress that’s most important to the user base.

But WordPress leadership has put that on the back burner.

WordPress users deserve continued innovation in this area.

But we are continually depressed as we watch release after release after release after release contain nothing but updates for the block editor.

The result of all this is a sharp increase in the number of long-time users who actually believe that there are better alternatives to WordPress from a CMS standpoint.

There are thousands of themes for WordPress.

There are dozens of block systems, dozens of page builders, dozens of ways of working with WordPress.

Unfortunately, almost all of these tools are designed for amateurs and late users.

They are missing key features that professional work requires.

A class first workflow, variables, native frame working, components, clean code output, powerful loops and logic, accessibility standards, version control, exposed code, the elimination of all magic areas, data liberation, data liberation, and a truly unified development environment.

The end result of that is that thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of professionals and aspiring professionals feel like none of these tools are really designed or built for them because they aren’t.

The philosophy of these tools thus far has been backward, quite frankly.

Tools and workflows are dreamed up and built out in the dark of night and they attempt to appeal to the lowest skilled users first.

Then, and only then, and not even in most cases, do they try to make it work well for professionals and aspiring professionals.

This is a completely backward approach that ultimately fails everyone.

There’s also a dramatic lack of education and thought leadership.

Since most of the visual tools that people are using don’t respect web design fundamentals, we have an entire upcoming generation of web designers learning proprietary workflows led by creators who have molded their own habits and teachings toward these problematic practices.

What is advertised as an easier entry into web design only creates less empowered and less knowledgeable users, more lock-in, and it replaces professional standards with industry-wide chaos.

When it comes to content creation, marketing, attracting talent, and building culture, all very important things, WordPress is losing in key areas and demographics.

We’re losing by a wide margin with younger audiences.

We’re getting trounced in that demographic.

We’re losing by a wide margin when it comes to being a cool platform and a modern product.

We’re losing in the arena of design talent.

Platforms like Webflow are becoming known for design trends and design talent, while WordPress is busy earning a reputation of being the old, boring industry dinosaur.

Now, you may not personally care about WordPress’ public perception.

But public perception is critical for sustained growth and adoption.

All of these things that I’ve mentioned are critical for sustained growth and adoption.

There’s a healthy chunk of the WordPress user base who are absolutely intent on denying these things, and they will deny them at all costs.

But these are very real issues.

And in every interview I do, every YouTube appearance, every podcast interview, every face-to-face meeting at WordCamps, I am asked, Kevin, how do we fix WordPress?

Now, make no mistake.

WordPress is not dead.

I’ve never said WordPress is dead.

I don’t think it’s even close to being dead.

I wouldn’t even say that WordPress is, quote-unquote, broken.

But its relevance, its relevance is most certainly dangling on the edge of two single features, data ownership and extensibility.

Truly, the only two reasons WordPress is still relevant in 2024 is because of its open-source nature and its nearly unlimited extensibility.

These are priceless benefits that Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, and most of these other top competitors cannot claim.

At the same time, though, those two things cannot be the only competitive advantages that we lean on.

If those two things are all we can offer, then our days are absolutely numbered.

The next five to ten years are not going to be great years in WordPress.

So things need to change, and they need to change quickly.

For WordPress and its users, that’s us, to truly thrive and to lead the industry for decades to come, five things need to happen, and they need to start happening now.

One, WordPress leadership must recommit to the core of the product, the content management system, general architecture, and database performance.

This side of WordPress is dramatically outdated and underpowered, and we can’t afford to continue neglecting it.

And let me take this opportunity to remind you, WordPress gained its most dominant historical market position when its focus was on the content management system, and when it had no native site editor to speak of.

So we shouldn’t be afraid of or opposed to refocusing on the CMS.

It should be the number one focus by far.

Two, the site editor and block editor need a freeze on all new major features to make space for a full 12-month commitment to user experience, stability, and fundamentals.

Putting a steady stream of new features on top of existing shaky code and UX nightmares, this is not what is needed most right now.

Three, the admin UI must be fully unified and modernized.

Having two or three separate UIs, a confusing experience, and a total lack of onboarding is a massive barrier to entry for new users.

It creates a terrible first impression, and it’s a continued source of frustration for existing users.

Now, we know this is a project that is already underway, but it must cross the finish line sooner rather than later, and the feature freeze, I believe, will help with that.

Four, the brilliant men and women, which there are plenty of them, the brilliant men and women working in this community must recommit to higher standards, must recommit to craftsmanship, to thought leadership, to innovation, sharing, teaching, and promoting.

I’m not saying they’re not committed.

I’m saying they need to recommit to this.

We cannot afford to continue losing in the arenas of design talent, best practices, social media influence, and public opinion.

The fifth and final action item, number five, is undoubtedly the most exciting, but it’s not something that can fit into a few sentences and get packaged up as a neat little soundbite.

Etch is a major project initiative.

It deserves serious, undivided attention because it holds major implications for the future of WordPress and for all users of WordPress, for site editor users and non-site editor users alike, for people that custom code, for people that page build.

It is for every WordPress user.

If you want the details of Etch, I’m going to ask you to attend one of the private live streams that I’m holding in early September.

I’m doing a series of these private live streams to ensure that every interested WordPress user across all countries and time zones has a fair opportunity to join and to participate.

As WordCamp US approaches, I will use these exclusive live streams to reveal the vision, mission, and guiding principles of Etch, to give you insights into key features, to introduce our advisory board, to discuss production timelines, and to reveal licensing and pre-purchase details.

Everyone who works within WordPress is invited to register and attend one of these live streams, but you must be on the waiting list to get dates and times and registration information.

Additionally, I will be at WordCamp US from September 16th through the 20th and would love to meet you.

I would love to talk WordPress with you.

I would love to talk Etch with you as we move forward into the next era of WordPress.

So visit the URL at the bottom of the screen.

It’s etchwp.com.

Use that URL to secure your spot on the waiting list.

And if you’re not subscribed to this channel, please subscribe now so that you don’t miss further updates.

There’s going to be more stuff published on this channel related to Etch.

There’s a treasure trove of amazing content here already that can fundamentally transform your front-end development skills.

There’s a lot of reasons, a lot of good reasons that you should be subscribed to this channel.

So hit the subscribe button.

I have been using WordPress exclusively since 2005.

I love WordPress.

I love the WordPress community.

I love your support.

And I do look forward to revealing more to you in September.

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