WP Townhall 008: The Websites We’re Building Are Broken w/ Chris Pearson

All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of WP Town Hall.

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We have my co-host, Mark Zemansky.

How’s it going, Mark?

Kevin, I am super excited for this episode.

I’m happy to have Chris here.

I just want to dive into it.

Yeah, yeah.

Our guest is Chris Pearson today.

I’m going to go ahead and let Chris just give his introduction.

I know he’s been around for a while in the WordPress ecosystem.

But go ahead, Chris, and let everybody know what’s up.

What’s your history?

Hello, everybody.

So I made the first million-dollar WordPress theme a long time ago, first premium theme.

It was called Thesis.

And in 2010, I reached a level of notoriety when Matt Mullenweg asked me to adopt the GPL license

and use public pressure to try and get me to do that.

I said no, and that started a big thing and eventually actually killed my business over time.

But I didn’t let that get me down or anything, and I’ve stayed in the WordPress space ever since.

I still develop templates and things like that.

But really, my eye – I’m tracking a different ball these days.

My eye is on a different ball, and that really is what kind of pages serve the audience.

The people who use the internet, the way they use the internet is constantly changing

because of social media and other pressures.

And I’m always tracking, like, where are we going to go next?

What do we need to do to serve visitors in the best way possible?

Because that affects everything that we build.

So I’m still building for internet.

I want to make sure I’m building the best tools that are getting the best results.

So I’m trying to track all the things that are affecting that.

I think we’re going to talk about a lot of that stuff today.

Let’s just segue right into it.

So we bounced around some topics, and I think we kind of boiled it down to this topic of the websites that we’re building are broken.

And I think you have the main set of opinions on that.

So I’m going to let you just set the stage for us.

Tell us how the websites we’re building are broken.

All right.

So the main thing that’s changed, and I’d say in the last six years, that is really remaking the whole entire websites and what we need to do with our websites is the nature of attention.

So it used to be that blogs and websites were our main entry points for exploring the internet.

You know, you maybe do a Google search, you end up on a website, and then you would explore within that website and learn about new topics, maybe get links to other sites, and you kind of build your own network branch through the things that you visited.

That has shifted massively in the last six years, especially now we get we do internet through social media.

And really, one other avenues through emails.

So emails and social media are now the highways.

The highways used to be websites, but now the highways are social media and emails.

And websites now are off ramps from this highway.

They’re exits.

They’re not the main thing.

They’re the thing we get off every now and then to go look at.

And when we get off the highway, we’re looking to do something specific.

Like I got to pee, so I’m going to the gas station.

There’s a specific reason why we get off the highway.

And so now at this point, there’s a specific reason why people visit websites.

And this little shift is huge.

It’s everything.

It changes the way we need to build pages.

It changes exactly what visitors are looking for when they reach our websites.

And specifically, there’s a transaction taking place.

So the transaction goes something like this.

Within an email or within a social media post, somebody makes a promise.

A promise of information, a promise of something that you can get.

And when that person, the visitor, goes to the website, they are looking to close that transaction as quickly as possible.

They want reassurance that they are in the right place to close that transaction.

Now, this doesn’t have to be a monetary transaction.

It can just be information.

You can set up an information gap.

They go to your website.

Boom.

They want to close that gap right away.

It can be as simple as information.

It can be as complicated as a sale.

But the bottom line is our pages have not really been built to close those gaps immediately.

Over the last 15 years, the trends that have happened in web design, the way we build pages, the way templates are constructed and all that stuff hasn’t really spoken to this new reality of what I call attention design.

And that’s where I shifted my focus now for six years.

This is where the future definitely lies.

It’s all about attention design and catering to exactly what visitors expect when they get off the highways of the Internet and visit our websites.

So what would you say are the hallmarks of this attention design?

What specifically what you know, what’s the difference?

What needs to change?

What’s what was the old way?

And then what is the new way?

Perfect.

So the old way is visual density and lots of different options.

So by options, I mean something as simple as a navigation menu.

We built these big navigation menus with dropdowns and like, you know, a whole panel would pop up and you could scroll over, you know, 16 links within each little subsection, something like that.

That is options.

And there’s an interesting psychological effect that options have on people.

When you present people with a bunch of options, they feel compelled to make a decision.

But the problem is when people have very little information about making a decision, they end up not making any decision at all.

They leave.

So you’re creating a situation by presenting someone with a bunch of options.

You’re creating a situation where there’s a tension there and you’re like essentially asking too much of somebody.

So that’s one one simple expression of that.

Another one could be like having a sidebar with a bunch of links and crap that’s not relevant to the current page.

So even something – so I talk about this a lot.

There’s a big theme that I have is horizontals in web design have been a near constant for the past 15 years.

And in fact, I kind of think we started to use them more.

I think there is kind of a reduction in that now.

But like horizontals, any element that’s presented horizontally, you have to be very careful with this now.

The web is a top-down medium.

For attention to work perfectly, like it just needs to be a simple top-down flow.

So when we introduce any horizontally oriented elements, it has to be for a really specific purpose.

So something like cards can be presented like three across if you’ve got like options for a product, something like that, because that might be the focus of a page.

You’re asking somebody to choose what thing is going to be right for them.

But the caveat is that has to be the only thing they’re deciding on that page, right?

So you can use horizontals, but you have to know how you’re using them.

Prior to now, for the last 15 years, we’ve kind of just thrown diarrhea at all these horizontals all over web pages in the form of navigation menus, in the form of like content on the left, sidebar, and a bunch of non-sequitur stuff on the right, that kind of thing.

We’ve used horizontals because we feel compelled to fill up white space.

That convention has to die.

The web is a top-down medium.

Attention works very well in a top-down manner.

It can work horizontally, but like I said, it has to have a specific purpose.

So there’s just these little caveats that kind of shift what we’ve been doing for many years.

So when you say horizontals, my mind immediately went to sliders, carousels, things up.

But you’re actually lumping in the navigation itself, a grid of cards that doesn’t even scroll horizontally.

It’s just cards happen to be next to each other because they’re in a grid.

You’re lumping kind of all of those things together.

All those things qualify.

And I mentioned that menu specifically because I think that’s sort of an arresting thing for people.

But I’m telling you, we cannot discount the psychological effects that asking people to choose an option.

We can’t discount the effect that that has.

Right.

But there’s an isolation of like, at least in people’s mind, I think, where the navigation exists as a like,

I know I can use that later if I need it.

But like, I’m going to interact with what’s on this current page first.

And then if I need to go somewhere else, I know I can scroll back up to the navigation, for example.

Like, how are you parsing that in terms of the user psychology?

Well, for one thing, I think, you know, I mentioned this earlier.

We stuff navigation menus with too much.

That’s true.

So it creates, like, people have this just innate desire to, like, show all this stuff.

Here’s all this stuff I have to offer.

Like, everybody’s Walmart.

Well, we don’t want everybody to be Walmart, is the thing.

But everybody wants to show off all this stuff that they have.

But that is a self-defeating thing to do.

You know, like, my websites have tons of stuff from all, you know, from the last 18 years of content production.

But I know that only certain things are hot right now.

And my navigation needs to only speak to those things that are hot and relevant right now.

So that does mean a lot of stuff is harder to get to, maybe not going to be seen at all.

But I have to accept that, knowing that those are low-value things to the current audience.

And I don’t think that designers and even website, you know, owners and stuff have done a very good job of this.

I don’t think they do a good job of making those kinds of assessments.

I think it needs to be, like, encouraged and taught for people to actually do better than just, you know, vomiting it all out there and saying, oh, please, look at all this stuff I have.

Yeah, so you would agree that there’s, like, different degrees of horizontals.

Like, for example, you can have a very basic menu.

And so you have a horizontal.

It exists, okay?

But then there’s, like, a mega menu situation.

That would be, like, the next level up of, okay, you’re flooding the person with options.

And then same thing with, you know, a slider.

I’ve always been against sliders.

And I consider a slider to be, I know these things aren’t well-defined in web design.

But for me, a slider is, like, a one-at-a-time slide kind of thing, which I’ve always been against because the second, third, fourth, fifth slides are all, they’re hidden, okay?

And then, but you have, like, a carousel situation where it would be, I can see two, three, four items at a time, but then they still slide to show more if I want to interact with it.

But to me, these are, like, different degrees of horizontals if you are grading from, like, a bad to worse kind of scenario, right?

Or do you see them all the same?

Absolutely.

Well, that’s what I was saying.

I was, like, there’s certain ways you can use them that are effective, but you have to know what you’re doing.

And I don’t trust the general population to do a good job of this.

Correct.

I mean, it’s got to be straight up about that.

I think if you give a designer, say, oh, you can use some, they’re going to barf them all over the page, and it’s going to be trash.

But, like, for example, if you have a side-scrolling grid of, like, four cards or something, like four and a half show, and it’s, like, testimonials, and people can scroll sideways to reveal more, I think that’s fine.

I think that’s great.

That’s a good way to do it because you’re not taking up a lot of vertical real estate with all these testimonials and stuff like that.

So there’s a little nuances there, but I would want somebody to really understand what they’re doing before they go deploying these elements.

But you were saying a minute ago, like, so if I have a nav, that’s one horizontal.

Then I have a grid of cards, that’s another horizontal, like, further down the page.

And then down the page further, I might have a carousel.

But these things might, they usually should contain different topical things.

And for me, like, a homepage is kind of the, it’s like a menu almost in itself.

It’s like, here’s a lot of what we offer.

Now, it doesn’t have to be this way.

I mean, you could do, like, a very landing page-focused homepage, right?

But for somebody who shows up and they’re kind of like, okay, what does this place have to offer?

It’s like, okay, well, here we do, we have our services.

And down here, by the way, did you know we have events?

And, you know, are you saying let’s transition away from that, make every page have a singular focus?

And then if so, I guess you just relegate everything out.

Like, you’re also kind of against the navigation.

They can’t go up and get the things that they might find deeper.

I’m just saying it can’t be the way it has been.

That’s what I’m saying there.

Okay.

I’m not saying no navigation.

Right.

I’m saying you’ve got to be careful.

You’ve got to be careful.

Okay.

So this takes us back to it is a constant debate and fight, really a fight, honestly, between the client, the developer, the designer, and even maybe whoever one of those.

It could be one.

It could be all.

It could be an independent person doing the kind of marketing strategy.

You have the copywriter involved.

Like, there’s all of these different disciplines.

And there’s always this fight between, well, this guy thinks we should do it this way.

This girl thinks we should do it this way.

And then the client has completely separate opinions.

How are you proposing that should be managed in this regard?

Well, I love that you said it exactly the way you said it because you didn’t mention the most important person of all.

That is the visitor.

Correct.

The visitor has to care.

And that’s the challenge that every website owner has right now.

We’ve got to make the visitor care.

I promise you, the visitor does not care.

When you described just a minute ago, like on the homepage, here’s kind of a menu of everything that we have to offer.

Well, that speaks to the nature of internet usage that no longer exists.

We do not go to websites to explore and to browse.

We go to websites to close a transaction.

Nobody knows about your business and just shows up on the webpage and, like, learns about it.

It’s like, oh, I’m going to work with this.

It’s just not how it works anymore.

It did work that way once upon a time, and my God, it was so much easier to do everything.

But those days are gone.

So now people are going to know, like, oh, DIY Themes is offering this e-commerce site package.

It’s cheaper than anybody else can do it.

You get a real fast, easy site that you can manage.

If they don’t see that on the homepage, they may not find it.

It’s even in my NAB menu, but I don’t trust that that is good enough to close that transaction

if somebody has that little snippet of info and is going to my site to look for it.

So it is just a total rethinking of the whole thing,

and it has to be visitor-focused because the nature of attention and the way visitors work

is going to determine whether or not you’re a success or a failure.

If I could just jump in for a second.

So, Chris, like, I feel what you’re saying here,

and we’re simulcasting these on, like, YouTube and different platforms as well,

and I’ve got a comment from Brian Cordes in my chat that is kind of saying, like,

this is more of, like, a landing page field than a website.

So obviously landing pages, you know, like, just in general have had a place in this ecosystem

of web design, right?

They’re not really, like, full-blown websites.

Maybe they’re just, you know, like a singular thing.

Like, I think when you say the words, like, no navigation, that is one trigger in my mind.

It’s like, okay, we’re building landing pages here.

So if I can understand your thought process here, do you have, and really how have you

arrived at this specifically, is that kind of how you’re feeling about this typical website

now based on all the context that you described, that websites should kind of be more, like,

singular-purposed or very, like, tightly focused, and they’re almost more of, like, a landing page?

Like, is one thing that you would say is, like, most websites just have too much stuff

on them, like, in general?

Is that kind of where we’re going, or is there more nuance to that?

I think that’s kind of generally it.

So websites have, especially if it’s been around a while, we all have so much stuff that we want

to share with potential visitors.

Say, hey, look, we do all this cool stuff, but the visitor doesn’t care.

That’s the problem.

The visitor doesn’t care.

The visitor cares about what is immediately relevant to them, and they’re not there to, like,

explore and figure out what’s relevant to them.

You have to have, like, a link on social media that spoke exactly to them or a link in an email

that spoke exactly to them, and it takes them to a page that’s, like, super, super relevant.

So that does push us more if you’ve got, like, a meter here.

The meter is definitely pointing over to the, this is more like a landing page than an OG website.

It’s definitely more on the landing page side of things.

There’s no question about that.

But, like I said, tendering the user’s attention is very tough.

Maybe, you know, like, so there’s other degrees here that you can get into

if you’re really trying to massage attention.

So, for example, you could send somebody to a page that the whole purpose of this page is to make the user curious

to explore what you have.

Right?

Not everything’s going to close.

But then, you know, you’ve taken them through.

You’ve spoken to their situation maybe at the top of the page.

And then you introduce a couple links that might be relevant to them.

And you’re able to show them, like, two or three options.

Like, oh, here’s different ways you could work with me or whatever.

Something you could buy.

A service you could get.

Someone you could talk to.

Something like this.

There’s different ways to introduce those things.

But my argument is that if you don’t speak to the visitor’s purpose right away, you’re really losing badly.

Yeah.

I mean, again, in principle, I do agree with the attention thing.

I mean, it’s getting kind of wild now.

Everybody has, like, kind of TikTok brand in a way.

So, I agree with all that.

One thought I have around this is do you feel like your position on this is, like, super innovative and everything right now?

Like, meaning, obviously, I do think that, like, I think that there’s a level of innovation and insight to this, like, thought leadership around that.

But my thought is, like, do you see anyone?

I mean, maybe you’re doing it personally, but do you see anyone in the wild?

Have you seen any good examples of doing what you’re trying, like, what you’re describing here?

Has this, like, caught on to a degree at all?

Or, like, or did you just kind of, like, or do you feel like you’re pioneering that thought process the most?

Well, I mean, I’ve got some people that use my software who have been kind of into these same topics for quite a while who have changed the nature of their businesses.

This one guy runs tours in Rome.

He’s, like, a Catholic tour guide, basically, for Rome.

And he has really bolstered his business by just shoring it down to, like, okay, here’s the guided tours.

Here’s the times of year you can do it, all that stuff.

So, like, that’s kind of transformed his business.

So, I’ve been able to watch stuff like that.

But more, I’m taking market cues.

So, like, the success of Substack, the success of Gumroad-type pages.

These people don’t have websites.

There’s no way for, like, an audience member who – so, this person sells Gumroad products, okay, in their big social media account.

And then the audience will go click on this one product that he links to, and they go to Gumroad.

And all it is is a way to buy that product.

There’s, like, no other information.

There’s no, like, about page.

There’s no nothing.

And yet they’re selling, you know, millions of dollars a year of these info products on Gumroad.

Like, how does that work?

Should they have a website?

Don’t people need all this information?

The answer is no.

They got the context from social media, and all they needed out of the website side of things was to close.

And when they went to that page, here’s how to buy it.

Like, it’s really simple.

And those transactions work.

So, when seeing the rise of those kinds of things, and you have to, like, balance that against, well, here’s what we’re doing with websites.

It’s totally different than what we’re seeing over here with Gumroad and Substack and stuff like that.

What gives?

I think in a lot of cases I agree with this.

Obviously, and we’ve all had our share of clients who, well, we want to put this on the homepage.

We want to put this on the homepage.

And there is always an explanation of, like, okay, I get it, but, like, they don’t care.

And it’s really not that important.

Also, maybe it is important, but it’s not important right now, okay?

And it’s almost kind of like positioning the dominoes and figuring out what your first domino is that’s going to knock the rest of the dominoes down.

Like, for example, a business owner might feel like their events that they throw are really important.

But guess what?

You don’t care about the events until you’ve been a customer for six months.

Then you might care about the events.

So let’s not put the events on the homepage.

Let’s figure out the domino that gets the person into the ecosystem, in as a client.

And then guess what?

They can learn about events later once they’re in.

They can learn about the next thing and the next thing.

It also kind of is that, like, free prize inside concept.

You don’t have to tell them everything that’s in the box before they sign up.

You find those things that are very important to them.

You get them to sign up.

And then everything else they discover that’s inside the box after they sign up is a free prize.

Now they’re just more joyful about their decision, right?

So everything doesn’t have to be presented up front.

I 100% agree with that.

And I think a lot of sites can be simplified.

A lot of sites.

And when I do WDD Live every two weeks, we do website critiques.

I’m constantly harping on get rid of the sliders, get rid of the mega menus, get rid of all this

distracting stuff, all this too much, all this me, me, me, us, us, us focused copy.

Okay.

We talk about the same patterns over and over and over again.

But I want to challenge you with an example at a larger scale.

You know, how would, for example, Apple apply a concept like this?

You go to apple.com.

They have a lot of shit they need to sell to a lot of different people.

And yeah, they have landing pages for everything too.

But they also are using the traditional website format that you are kind of arguing against.

So how do you reconcile a company like Apple?

Okay.

Okay.

You brought quite a few things here that I want to address like on the way to this.

This is great.

So, gosh, there’s so many things that I kind of lost my train of thought.

So the first one, you nailed it.

So you described a process like, okay, there’s free stuff inside.

That describes a process, not a singular webpage.

And what are webpages?

Webpages are essentially information.

You know, if it’s useful information, then the webpage is going to work.

If it’s not useful, it’s just a throwaway.

So our websites exist now as part of a process.

And we need to see them as that.

And that process may include emails.

It may include socials.

It includes stuff outside of the website.

And the website fits into that process in some way.

That fundamentally changes the nature of the way we build the pages, what appears where, you know, the sequence, the whole thing.

So it’s part of a process.

It is no longer the means of discovery.

It’s no longer the avenue of discovery.

Now, next thing, speak to the Apple question.

This is so great because I use this in sort of a derogatory way when I talk about this to people.

You’re not Apple.

None of you are building a website for Apple.

Please put your hand up in the chat because none of you are.

Very few companies are in a position to have an Apple-like website.

Very, very few.

Increasingly fewer, I would argue.

And so, yes, that might work for them.

But to use that as a model for anybody else is absolutely stupid.

It’s going to be a total failure.

People, if you grab someone off the street, they can probably name like three or four products that Apple has.

But if you grab somebody off the street, you know, for whatever business you’re building a website for, nobody knows the damn thing about them.

That is a huge difference.

That’s everything right there.

You have to meet the visitor where they are.

Apple’s visitors are sophisticated and have, you know, probably a long history with them, knowledge of their products, et cetera.

But for, you know, random Joe’s business you’re building a website for, they do not have that.

So that is just completely like not even relevant.

But just for clarity, it’s just go e-commerce.

We don’t have to do Apple.

Just go e-commerce.

You know, e-commerce brands have a lot of different categories, a lot of different products in different categories.

That’s very common.

And a lot of people in our audience are building e-commerce sites like this.

Okay.

And, yes, people are learning on social media about companies.

And they’re seeing videos.

And they’re doing word-of-mouth stuff before they ever arrive on a website.

And a lot of that is pre-sales.

And a lot of that is somewhat varying degrees of introduction to a company.

But I don’t know that I’m ready to agree that the vast majority of visitors already know what they want to do when they arrive on a website and just want to get there and they just want to do it.

I still feel like there’s a lot of browsing.

There’s a lot of deciding.

There’s a lot of weighing pros and cons.

There’s a lot of looking at this company versus that company.

And those decisions do require a significant amount of content in most cases to sell them.

It’s got to be the right kind of content, obviously.

But it also, I think, relies on a certain level of browsing as well.

Poking around.

Going from page to page.

Navigating a website.

I still think for a good, solid percentage of users that that’s very relevant.

Unless they came from a hyper-focus.

Like, on social media, the only thing I would say that would be a difference is ads.

We’re running an ad campaign for this thing.

Yes, the ad campaign is designed to get them in the mode of buying that thing.

So let’s get them on the site to that thing and don’t let them get lost browsing and doing all this other stuff.

That would be the context where that makes perfect sense.

But for the rando who comes from just organic exposure and my friend emails me and says,

Hey, you got to check this company out.

It’s like right up your alley.

Okay, I don’t know anything about it.

I click on it.

I need that old website experience, perhaps.

Or maybe you’re going to disagree.

I totally disagree with that.

I think that percentage of visitors is so small.

Vanishingly small.

And it doesn’t speak to the way the information flows work on the internet now.

It just doesn’t.

People always know going in, there’s just not a lot of browsing and discovery happening on websites.

Even if you were comparing a couple different agencies and considering for service work,

you would have been tipped off to like, who’s doing this work?

Like, who do you even look for?

And you would either have found that through a search and probably an ad placement or through some sort of recommendation through a mutual, something like that.

So they would have come into your consciousness in some other way prior to this.

And that would have already narrowed your search significantly.

A lot of times people aren’t even showing the gumption to like really look around.

It’s like, oh, this is what somebody said.

I’m just going to kind of go with this.

And they get tunnel vision.

I think that’s more likely than the randos by like a factor of like, you know, some multiple at this point.

Okay.

So let’s get real practical with it.

Here’s our e-commerce.

Hold on.

I wanted to make one distinction because you kind of brought up a lot of points there.

I will draw a distinction, not like a full on like disclaimer, you know, disqualifying distinction, but a distinction between e-commerce sites that have physical inventory versus every other kind of site.

Okay.

If you have physical inventory, that means you’re going to have quite a few items probably.

And that means you can display a greater density of things because like, let’s say you’re a disc golf store and you got like, you know, 50 discs you’re selling.

People need to access all 50 of those discs, you know, because, you know, they might be looking for the whole gamut.

You never know.

But I do think there are some tweaks that need to be made.

Like we’re displaying some huge grid.

I think maybe, you know, one disc, one atop the other.

People just do this more infinite scroll TikTok style kind of thing.

I would argue that, you know, it’d be worth testing.

This could be more effective than the grid.

You know, who knows?

But those are things that are specific to those types of websites.

And that is the only exception I’m willing to draw at this point is for physical inventory.

So I do think that’s a different game.

I don’t actually work with that.

I think that’s the biggest pain in the ass of all time.

I would charge a billion dollars to do a freaking physical inventory website.

But I know some people out there are definitely working with that.

I mean, there’s enough WooCommerce stuff to support it.

But that’s the only distinction I’m willing to draw there.

Yeah.

I think in some cases it’s just a UX decision more than anything.

Like for me, when I’m, and this is just my personal experience, when I’m browsing e-commerce

sites, let’s, disc golf, let’s use that as an example.

So a disc golf company might have this fucking hot new innovative disc, okay?

And they could put one, they could just put it on the page by the disc.

And when I click on the disc, it allows me to choose a color.

And maybe they have 12 different colors or patterns or whatever it is.

There’s that experience where I saw the disc, I clicked on the disc, now I get to choose

variants.

Or as I’m browsing through all of their available discs, it has the same disc over and over and

over again in the grid of each color.

And as I’m going down, it’s kind of that way for all of their products.

To me, that’s actually a better experience.

It’s better to have a higher density grid of all of the options because I don’t have to

go into one and out of another to see what options are available for that one.

They’re just all there in the, I can just scroll up and down and see everything available

to me.

And that way it makes it easier for me to make my ultimate decision.

But yeah, I agree with that actually.

I don’t know.

I would argue that there’s one, you know, a real ninja can understand what the prevailing

UI trends are out there and know that visitors are likely to be accustomed to this kind of thing.

Like certain Amazon conventions, everyone’s going to be familiar with.

So you can use them in those cases.

But again, these are exceptions.

Like I only trust experts with exceptions and I don’t think most people are experts.

I do agree with that.

There’s too many non-experts making very important key decisions for websites.

And this is something that I’ve harped on since the beginning of time, essentially, where like,

I think people who allow their clients to write copy are crazy.

I think that people who allow clients to dictate where things go on the website and what the

website looks like and all this other stuff, I think they’re crazy.

I think that you’re putting the least qualified person in charge of what’s happening on the

website.

And then you are signing up to be responsible for the outcomes of the website.

That’s ludicrous in my, so I’ve always been like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You have to lead this project.

You have to be the one making the decision.

Unless you’re in a situation where you’re just going to acknowledge that you’re a pixel pusher.

You don’t really know all the client knows best and you’re not responsible for the outcome.

Like if that’s the situation we want, you want to put your, but you’re going to be broke if

you put yourself in that situation.

So that’s still a lose, lose.

So I’m totally with you there.

Well, I mean, kind of moving this discussion forward, like I had this new mantra that’s

kind of come about in the last few years, but I want to work in paradise.

I want to work in paradise.

And that means not certainly not, you know, if the client hires me as the expert, why the

hell am I listening to them?

That’s not, that’s not the way this works.

That’s not paradise.

Another one is the systems I use, you know, having to, having to tinker with WordPress and

do different things with it.

I’m sorry, guys.

I think a lot of us just internalize and accept all the crap we have to do.

It sucks.

It sucks.

I spent years of my life building what I call like a translator.

So I could speak a very matter of fact language to this translator and it tells WordPress all

that absolutely crazy BS it needs to be able to do the stuff I want it to do.

That’s one way that I have made sure that I get to work in paradise and not in

a freaking favela.

And, uh, you know, so many things work along those lines, but I think the people who build

sites for clients and basically who are building the internet, I think we should demand to work

in paradise.

Like we have been slumming it for way too long.

We wade through the muck and deal with all sorts of BS.

Like enough.

There’s no point in this.

There’s no point in this.

I want to work in paradise.

So you’ve described some of it.

Uh, what about, what about the tech that we’re actually using to, to do the work that we’re

doing?

What is, what does paradise look like in that regard?

Well, so I, I did a video, uh, in October of last year.

It’s on my YouTube channel that kind of kickstarted this discussion.

I’ve been talking about it ever since, but basically I showed the world what it would be

like if the WordPress plugin system had been built the right way.

If it was truly an object oriented thing, if every plugin were an instance of this core

plugin object, it would be able to do things like the following.

Okay.

So WordPress has different places where you might want to insert options.

You can do post meta, like on the content editing page, a plugin might have its own options

page.

So like there’s that separate page there.

There’s the, the, like the content editing screen.

Like I said, there’s also within tags and categories and taxonomies and all that stuff.

There’s options that can be conveyed to those pages.

I think there’s a couple of other places that I’m not even remembering right now, but bottom

line is the plugin architecture should have shortcuts.

So you, you speak a very simple language, like give it an array of options and it knows to populate

those pages with these options, or you can even give it an array.

Say like, here, here’s my admin options array.

And it knows that it has to spool up an admin page with all this stuff on it.

And so, and that would also cover like the outputting, the saving, the retrieving of all those

options.

Right now we have to do all those steps.

Every time we convey any of those things, like all these things should be totally valet

right from the get go.

I give it an array.

It gives me everything else.

It gives me the options output.

It saves it.

It sanitizes it.

It brings it back to me exactly where I need it for usage.

Like within HTML output or whatever, like all that stuff should be happening.

It is not like that architecture is a joke.

And so like, that’s one example of working in paradise.

When I say that, like, this is, this is what I mean.

Like the code that we, the code bases that we have to manage to be able to do the great

things that we do or the really dynamic things could be so amazing.

Gang, it could be so good.

And like everybody would feel like absolute geniuses with this power at their fingertips,

but we just do not have that.

And then, you know, getting into the themes would be, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And we’ve been down, we’ve been down that road.

So, but we’re also facing this reality.

Uh, the things that you just described are not going to happen in WordPress, uh, or they’re

not going to happen any, any, any time soon.

Uh, so what’s the solution?

Well, to me, the solution is a new platform.

I think the time has come, you know, I thought this in as far back as 2012, I was like, well,

well, cause I built a replacement for the WordPress theme system.

There was, there is no WordPress theme system.

It’s an if else tree that relies on file names.

It’s not real.

Uh, and so back then I built a modular template system that works in the way I described with,

you know, the options and all that stuff.

And I was like, wow, this is the future.

This is what’s going to need to happen.

But it was clear that WordPress could never just like transform itself to do that.

Everything else that ever existed on the platform would be obsoleted.

And at that time, even the plugin system was so huge.

The theme system was so huge.

The ecosystems, I mean that, you know, it’s just, it’s just like, it’s,

it’s untenable to do that.

You would, you would kill so much of the ecosystem.

So it can’t happen on WordPress.

It never could happen on WordPress.

But the momentum of that platform has been undeniable.

I mean, it, uh, continued to grow massively from 2012 on.

I would say there was a, a growth period from 2012 to 2016 in particular with the growth of e-commerce on the platform that really made WordPress not much stronger.

You know, I think it went from like 28 to 43% of the internet during that time.

And, uh, so that, that kind of growth is undeniable.

And so I was really kind of dejected about this for, for years thinking like, wow, it’s, you know, we’re going to be building in this shitty platform forever.

Uh, because the momentum is just, it’s just too huge.

But, um, what happened last year with Matt kind of, it changed my mind on the whole thing.

Like this was the opening.

This is it.

It’s going to change.

And so on October 17th, I started building a new platform that works in the way I’ve described.

A totally object oriented modular system that is built the right way.

Minimal PHP architecture will run on any Apache system.

Minimal setup requirements.

No BS.

Just boom, boom, boom.

Everything that we need to make the simple kinds of pages that we’re talking about today with an e-commerce layer, initially e-commerce for like info sites and communities.

So not, not physical inventory upfront, but eventually yes.

But that’s what I’m building now.

And I w I wanted to build this for years and felt like it would be totally useless to build it because WordPress was so big, but the events of the last six months have made me feel differently.

So that was the tipping point.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t a few years into the Gutenberg because I know you’re not, you’re not a huge fan of the Gutenberg project.

It’s a disaster.

But you, so it wasn’t that, that, that really wore you down.

It was the, the Matt thing was the final straw.

Yeah.

So one thing I learned through my public scrutiny that started in 2010 is that perceptions matter more than software.

And I hate that, but it’s the truth, like marketing and sales matter more than like, you know, the software that you’re selling or your business, you know, you know, whatever you think about your product, you know, marketing and sales is the engine.

Your product really is not.

And perceptions kind of play into the whole marketing sales side of things.

And if the perception is that WordPress is what we use, no amount, like you can’t engineer out engineer that.

Right.

But the perception is finally changing.

Gutenberg killed a lot of goodwill.

And then this on top of that, I think has made enough people who are good people who are actually building stuff, scratch their chins and think, maybe there is something better for us.

And so without that shift in perception, this was not going to be possible in my opinion.

All right.

I think that’s a good segue into the part of the show where people get to participate.

So what I’m going to turn this over to Mark here too, so he can get some words in, but I want to put a call to anybody listening in the X space.

Go ahead and raise your hand to join the speaker pool.

If you want to come on to agree with things that you’ve heard, if you want to come on to disagree with things that you’ve heard, add your own two cents.

I also want to turn it over to our simulcasting audience on YouTube.

If you want to ask a question, you can ask a question in the chat.

It has to have hashtag Q in front of it so that we can find it.

But Mark will be looking on his channel.

I’ll be looking on my channel.

And again, don’t be shy if you’re in the listener pool on X spaces.

Go ahead and raise your hand.

Let’s get you into the speaker pool.

Let’s hear from you.

But I’ll turn it over to Mark real quick.

Yeah, 100% guys.

Definitely.

If you have any questions, drop them in the chat.

We’d love to hear you in here too.

I’m sure Chris is more than happy to ask or answer questions and feel different stuff because a lot of interesting stuff we’re hearing here.

Chris, I don’t know if people are going to ask about this specifically, but I know it was on kind of our initial questioning and everything like that.

And we’ve kind of started to kind of teeter into the area.

How do we feel about the licensing portion?

Like the open source?

I know obviously you have literal physical experience back in like the early 2010s around this.

And now, you know, you mentioned that you’re kind of starting your own, like you’re literally in the process of building your own platform.

So like what is your, and we also, more context, we’ve had a couple, we always have conversations about open source and licensing and things like that.

But we all, we had a couple earlier episodes of WP town hall where we’re actually talking more specifically.

People were giving their thoughts.

What’s your high level on this whole thing?

The way that WordPress handles it, the way that other platforms handle it, how you would handle it in your platform.

What’s your, what’s your thought around the licensing portion?

All right.

That’s a great question.

I, you know, open source to me is a huge red flag.

All right.

Open source means two things to people at large.

Number one, it means free.

Number two, it means a community where I can contribute and feel welcome.

I think the free part of it is the most legitimate part of it.

I think the other one is something that people want to believe and want to feel good about, but I do not think is a necessary component in success.

I think that that inclusionary component is a way to build a massive audience and a massive following.

But I think it is absolutely the biggest tightrope of all time.

I think we’ve seen what’s happened with WordPress.

I think if you don’t see this as a massive rug pull and a slap in the face, you’re just not paying attention.

I will not be involved with anything like that.

I do not want people to feel like I have exploited them or done a rug pull or anything like that.

It is really, really gross to me.

And I want to make that very clear to anyone listening that what has happened with this, the way the WordPress thing has unfolded is disgusting.

I don’t want anything to do with it, to be honest.

But so that gives me great pause because I know that those preconditions and those pre, you know, the perceptions that people have when they go into this whole open source thing.

Some people have those and they’re not going to be able to disabuse themselves with that notion.

And they’re going to want to make anything new that they adopt into what they wanted WordPress to be.

And that is just a, it’s a, it’s a myth.

It’s a mirage.

It’s not a real thing you can grasp for.

So, you know, I don’t know what to say to those people other than like, hope you were paying attention.

Hope you maybe learned a lesson from this last episode.

But if you go down that path again, you’re going to be bummed.

Chris, do you feel like data, the data liberation, there is a third part to that that you didn’t mention, which is people feel like it’s a safety net, that their, that their, that their data is liberated in the sense that, hey, if, if this actor becomes a bad actor, I can, I, you know, I still own all my stuff.

I still have the software I I’m in control.

Right.

Do you feel like that’s a mirage as well?

Well, I feel like it’s not really real.

If you have distributed software that you install on your own server and run, it’s yours anyway.

Right.

No one’s going to mess with your data.

No one can.

I mean, Matt could put something in WordPress tomorrow in an update that nukes your whole database.

We just trust that he won’t, but that’s true of anybody.

Not just, you know, the open source doesn’t change that.

Right.

And, and I’ve, what I’ve been trying to make the point of is that, um, the value it’s, it’s, I think people,

where people misunderstand it is they’re like, we could just keep moving WordPress forward.

You can’t, you can’t, you can’t do that.

That’s, that’s, that’s the mirage.

Right.

That’s, but I think so many people bought into that.

No, you have to leave WordPress.

Let’s, let’s just be clear about that.

If, if Matt rug pulls, you have to leave work.

You can’t just be, well, it’s open source.

We can just keep going with work.

No, you can’t keep going with WordPress.

You have to go somewhere else.

You can fork it.

But as we’ve discussed, that’s going to require tens of millions of dollars, a big team.

And, uh, it’s going to, it’s very likely to fail.

So it’s, it’s not practical.

Right.

It’s super self-defeating.

I’ve been in the weeds with this for a few months.

Now I can tell you right now, there’s no chance.

No chance.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, do you have any questions in your channel, Mark?

Well, I do want to say though, I prefer the MIT license, the MIT open source license.

It’s very, no nonsense.

It’s cut and dry.

There’s no BS.

There’s not a whole lot of stuff to figure out.

It’s just very straightforward.

The question that we need to ask ourselves and the question that I’ve had to ask myself

is how do I want to distribute this software?

I think that for any platform to take over the mantle that WordPress has had, it needs to

be free.

It’s as simple as that.

And so I want a license that supports this free thing.

that’s going to go out to everybody.

And then a lot of people are going to be relying on for their businesses and for their websites.

It needs to be simple.

It needs to be straightforward.

And the software needs to be free.

That’s my tenants right now.

And where is the funding, uh, going to come from that you, that you will come from me right

now, which is not great, but yeah, that you will ultimately need.

What’s your, do you have a, is there a funding plan?

Uh, so right now the funding plan is pretty loose, but it goes something like this.

So you’ve got the basic platform and then I’ve got some real simple add-ons that you

probably would want on your site.

If you were actually going to build a business website with this thing and those add-ons come

with a one-time fee.

In addition to that, if you want to be part of this community, so to speak, something sort

of like the WordPress community or contributor on wordpress.com or wordpress.org, pardon.

Uh, if you want to see like a similar situation to that, I will have some forums, but I think

it’s going to cost something nominal, like $17 a year to be a contributing member.

Cool.

What’d you got Mark?

Well, I mean, we don’t have to dive too deeply into this, but I mean, you know, the thing that

I’ve noticed over the last like two years of being really deeply into the WordPress ecosystem

is kind of a lot of the stuff that we’ve brought up here.

You know, you bring up the first thing of open source equals free.

I think that’s definitely good in some ways, but again, as Kevin just said there, you know,

stuff doesn’t just happen, right?

Like, I mean, we, money is real.

We need to obviously make money in order to keep having literally whatever software or

whatever product we have.

So just the one little tiny note in there is like with an add on, you know, the add on model,

for instance, like the, like there’s, we, we talk about this all the time.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a platform or if it’s a plugin or whatever, this idea of lifetime

deals, lifetime licenses for software, uh, specifically in WordPress.

Do you have any opinions on that?

Because everybody hates, everybody hates like subscriptions, so to speak, when they’re on

the consumer end in some ways, but then you really look at it.

It’s like, well, would I rather just pay for this thing?

Like, so it keeps getting updated or would I rather like pay for it one time and then in

two years I have to find something different because they’re out of money now.

So I just wrote, this is, this is a bigger question, dude.

This is kind of the hugest question that’s facing all of us.

So everyone who operates with websites and does this kind of business, this is the, this sort

of Damocles hanging over our heads right now.

So we are in the midst that I talk about this on Twitter a lot.

We’re in the midst of a subscription event horizon.

What has happened is everybody’s transitioned to some sort of subscription model.

Consumers have way too many subscriptions.

They have a need to call them.

The subscription providers are shitty at doing business.

They constantly have to raise their prices.

There’s competitive concerns there.

And also just some, some waste concerns.

And all that creates a ton of pressure for people to cull the subscriptions they have.

As much as we like to feel good about the work that we do.

The reality is that our website component subscriptions are low on that totem pole.

If it’s you against Netflix, who do you think is going to win?

Netflix is going to get that money and you’re going to be out.

So the subscription event horizon is real.

And I’m thinking about this all the time.

This is like my number one concern with how I push this new thing forward.

It’s like, I know that I can have a small, small little business department, whatever you

want to call it, that will work with these, you know, one-time fee for certain components.

And this works with these components because I’ve really refined them over the years.

I don’t have to do that much work.

It’s not like it takes a bunch of upkeep.

So it will work in that case for the whole platform, which I said has to be free.

There is some, some stuff to be done there, but we are kind of accustomed to, or we naturally

think that the thing has to work like WordPress.

Like WordPress has these quarterly updates and they’ve done all this stuff.

Well, I think if you take a step back, here’s a couple of things are true.

One thing that’s true is that the, a basic platform, what it needs to do is actually finite.

It is not an infinite creep sort of thing.

Yes.

Things change on the internet.

Yes.

Things are going to have to be tweaked, but it is not an infinite level of creep.

And so a platform therefore could have all the basic stuff built out at some point and not

really need that much input from there on out.

And it’s important to actually define the boundaries so that the thing doesn’t spiral out of control.

Like WordPress has sort of had this internal power struggle between like, oh, who should run

the updates and there’s been all this focus over the years, which I’m sorry, it’s going

to offend somebody.

I don’t care.

But like all this focus on accessibility, like so much of the stuff that’s going to the

platform the last 10, 12 years has been all these accessibility features used by 1%.

This is another theme of mine.

It’s called the 99 to 1 fallacy.

We sacrifice 99% to focus on this 1% of stuff that never gets used.

So all this stuff that’s been quote unquote built into WordPress the last decade, it’s

been a joke.

They’d have been better off just refining everything that they have internally to make it easier

for people to use and develop on.

But no, that’s not what’s happened.

So I do think it’s possible to build up.

So my larger point is I do think it’s possible to build a finite platform that doesn’t require

that much input and therefore would not require that subscription based model to survive.

See, I don’t know if I’m not on the anti-subscription bandwagon.

I don’t know if I agree with the Netflix is going to win over WP plugin.

Like for example, if the WP plugin is insanely valuable to my business workflow and I make a

shitload of money from it, I’m definitely, well, one, I don’t need to cancel Netflix because

I’m not fucking poor.

But two is I would cancel Netflix before I canceled the thing that was enabling me to like do my

work.

Right.

Listen, I agree.

I’m kind of being a little bit tongue in cheek there.

The really good stuff will have a place.

Right.

But the fact that this idea that everybody’s going to do their stuff that way is just not

going to work.

Yeah.

There’s only a few key components in this entire ecosystem.

I’d argue fewer than 40.

Yeah.

It becomes a competitive, it’s a very competitive marketplace and people can only tolerate so

many subscriptions.

That is 100% true.

I think that’s actually helpful for the user to not accumulate a bunch of shit that they

don’t need.

They’re constantly looking at their stack, at their life in general.

What am I paying for?

What are my priorities?

I actually think that there’s a good side to that.

What I will say is what makes me very uncomfortable is using free software.

Makes me very uncomfortable.

Automatic CSS is, we’re actually in the process of completely transitioning it right now.

The PHP processor that we use is part of the open source WordPress project.

It’s run by like two different guys in their spare time whenever they get a chance.

And sorry, I can’t run my main product off of that.

I am very comfortable when I know that the provider of my software is rich and active.

That’s what I would like.

I would like them to be very well off and very active.

I want them to have a lot of money, a lot of cash flow, and a lot of motivation.

You know, that’s…

Totally agree with this.

I mean, this has been the case forever.

Yeah.

This is the utopia we want to move to.

Yeah.

So that’s a much more stable system, you know.

I don’t want to be like, oh, it’s free.

That’s so warm and fun.

No, no, that’s cold and like very scary.

I don’t want the people that control very important software in my life to be underfunded, unfunded, broke, poor, whatever.

I want them to be very focused and very well off.

That’s like what makes me warm and fuzzy at night.

Yeah.

Well, I agree.

Well, I mean, look, so the game that we’re playing here, if WordPress powers 43% of the internet, you give me 1% of that, believe me, I’ll be making millions of dollars a year with these add-on components.

It’d be fine.

And like I said, if it’s a finite system, then that’s more than covered.

I’m making sure those bases are covered.

I mean, obviously, this is not tenable without that kind of thing.

I also think, you know, you have your core components, like anything that’s e-commerce adjacent.

That’s going to be a money-making thing.

That’s a subscription model thing.

There’s something to that.

But I have a question for you.

Is your parser, does it do SCSS?

A SaaS processor?

Yeah, that’s what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s what it is.

It’s a PHP SaaS processor.

So it’s not using that library that’s been around since last updated 2014, so GitHub.

It’s the most popular one.

I don’t know what it’s called.

That’s probably it.

Yes, that’s probably it.

Okay.

I think that’s the only one I’m aware of that totally works.

It’s the only PHP processor.

Yeah, that’s correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But we found a different avenue, so we’re in the process of transitioning to that currently.

Yeah, that itself is a massive piece of software, and in my opinion, it’s the absolute worst kind because it relies on so much regex.

That’s actually the worst kind of shit to build.

Yeah.

Yeah, and what it’s done, while we’re sitting around waiting for it to be updated, I can’t modernize all the SaaS and the framework because the processor doesn’t process it.

All I get is errors and a bunch of other nonsense.

So it’s forcing us to be more updated.

We should probably have an aside about that.

I’ve figured out ways to work around most of that stuff over the years.

I’ve been using that for 12 years now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We just found our new path forward that has zero limitations and is probably, I don’t know, 75% faster as well.

So it’s working out.

It’s working out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you have anything else, Mark?

I got one question, but I’ll bounce it back to you.

Yeah, I mean, I would say, I mean, we’re bouncing all around like this thing now, especially with the money talk, so to speak.

Subscriptions and everything.

I had a question in my chat from our friend, Matt Medeiros, and he said, open source, the values, like I’ll paraphrase, but like the value of open source, like in a system like this, is that you can obviously see another value is that you can see all the code.

Right.

And it encourages like a third party ecosystem, like something that thesis has benefited from in the WordPress ecosystem, just as an example.

So like in your, in your path forward in the platform that you’re talking about, Chris, is that something that like you, what do you think?

I think, I think I’ve might’ve seen a video with your thoughts on this, but I want to hear it here.

So do you, are you of the opinion that that’s not really the best way to go?

You can’t have too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.

I don’t know if you’ve phrased it like that before, but like, you know, all the contributors and like, you know, you get this weird thing where it’s like some contributors are paid and they just do it for fun.

And then some people are sponsored, like your path forward with a platform that was maybe free at the base layer and has the add-ons.

Like what’s that look like from a development of not just the core product, but also the ecosystem around it.

Do you have anybody else involved?

Yeah.

So a few points there, a few points.

Number one, open source has nothing to do with whether or not you can see the code of a product.

I’ve always, that’s always just run me so the wrong way.

If you install the shit on your server, you can look at the code.

I don’t care how you got it or what license it has.

So that is a specious basis.

I want that to die.

It’s stupid.

Next thing.

This whole open contributor model, I think, is insane, gang.

It is insane.

Here’s why it’s insane.

It assumes a level of aptitude and a level of understanding of the entire product that is non-existent.

The reality is some people are extremely good engineers and extremely high achievers who understand entire systems,

and other people have very limited concerns and have tunnel vision and zero knowledge about what it takes to build a large-scale distributed product that millions of people rely on.

That gap cannot be brief.

You can’t cross that.

You can’t build a bridge over that.

There’s nothing you can do.

If you open that door for everybody to come in, you are going to have a favela and a piece of crap for a callback from my thing earlier.

I absolutely ascribe to something I call architect theory.

You need one architect who knows everything that’s going on in the system.

That way, when you tug on a string over here, you know what’s likely to happen elsewhere in the system because unintended consequences are like, you know, this is the story of everything.

Oh, we wanted to do this.

Oh, but look at all this other stuff that was affected when we did this.

Those outcomes must be avoided.

The only way to avoid that is to have sort of an all-knowing architect in charge of this thing.

And so I guarantee you that the architected system is going to have better results over time and fewer weird stuff happening, just much tighter.

It’s going to be so much better.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine because nothing that you work with right now is like this.

That’s music to my ears.

Real quick on that.

Everything we’re talking about here, obviously, is, you know, maybe we’re generalizing here and there.

Everybody’s situation is kind of different.

We’re talking big topics here, obviously.

But one specific thing that I think is consistently coming up, and we’re kind of hitting on it, kind of not, but really particular to that right there, is how do you manage and mitigate the risk of all these things?

Like, so, for instance, like that last point, like I totally agree with what you’re saying, like in a lot of ways, like I understand that.

But then the devil’s advocate is like, okay, now you only have like one person that kind of knows everything.

So if they get hit by a bus or something, like obviously maybe just documentation and stuff like that.

But like, how do you process risk with all these things that you’re saying here on those types of things when you’re talking business sense and platform longevity?

Well, I actually love that question because here’s the deal.

If, you know, let’s say that this platform is already built.

I’m pretty far along, but it’s not, you know, ready for public consumption yet by any means.

It’s going to be a while.

But let’s say it’s already built and you guys are using it and can look at it.

We can go look at the code.

You know, somebody’s going to be able to figure out what the hell is going on through reverse engineering this thing.

But all the answers are right there.

Like, honest to God, like this has kind of been the biggest thing for me to consider.

When I put this out there, everyone’s going to see the answers.

They’re going to have them.

They’re going to be running the answers right there on their server.

If you want to see, you know, inside the machine, you want to, you want to, you know, achieve this amazing level of understanding, it is all going to be right there for people to see and to decipher for themselves.

And that’s sort of like the amazing thing about distributed software and also the scary thing.

You know, it’s like, well, I’m naked.

Here, this is it.

Here it all is, you know, totally butt naked out in front of everybody.

All the thinking, all the magic, all that stuff, everything that, you know, as a creator,

you want to kind of hold close, you have to bear in front of everyone.

And, you know, that’s, that’s kind of what I’m starting to embrace about it though.

Like the answers will be there.

Like if I get hit by a bus, I told my wife, you know, make sure the kids, my son in particular,

like make sure he knows how to decipher this thing at some point.

Like that’ll be his mission.

And then he can move on after that.

But like, this will be the thing he needs to unpack and understand for himself.

Because he will understand if he’s able to do that, he will understand the thinking that went into this.

And then we’ll kind of open up all these avenues for them.

So once it’s out there, I kind of feel like that is the insurance policy.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, got to do it somehow.

Obviously got to mitigate that risk for that.

So yeah, Kevin.

Yeah.

Well, we’re over time.

I think what we’re going to have to do is bring Chris back.

It’s always a, I mean, we have so much to, there, there are more avenues and rabbit holes.

We could absolutely go down.

But we need to save it probably for a follow up.

I see Matt just requested to speak right on time.

We did start at 1130.

So.

Oh, you’re right.

We did start at 1130.

Oh no.

Okay.

Matt.

Unless you got to stop.

No, no, no.

I don’t.

I don’t.

No, that’s good.

I was, I was on the old schedule.

Okay.

Let me invite him back.

Matt was like in the process of raising his hand.

Hey, there he is.

Hey, Chris, help me understand your perspective on open source.

You say that you’re, if I’m getting this right, because I’m really having a hard time following,

but your new product will be open source.

And that’s something that you’re using in for the community to see and understand what you’re

building and that’s like your safety net.

So it sounds like open source to me, but at the same time you say open source isn’t something

that you particularly follow.

Help me understand your side of open source.

All right.

So I tried to explain the two ways people see open source free software versus like this community

inclusion sort of thing.

I think, I mean, to me, I feel like that’s self-explanatory.

If you’ve been in the WordPress game for a while, is that, is that clear with everybody

else or is that sort of not clear?

Do I need to clarify that?

I think that’s your perspective.

It’s not something I agree with, but, but you can continue with that lens.

Uh, I mean, I can cite some examples.

I mean, like how about WordPress putting out there on like, I don’t know, there’s some 2016

release.

They made a big deal about it.

There’s like an all female team, something like that.

Like that is to me, that is goofy.

But some, I know a lot of people spoke to that as like stuff that they like about the open

source aspect of it, the open community, that kind of thing.

I’m pushing back against that specifically, but I do think that that’s something a lot

of people attach themselves to when they see open source.

But if you don’t agree with that, it’s fine.

But I think that’s-

I believe you’re, I think you’re just conflating two different things with open source.

Like that, to me, that’s not open source.

I think that’s how Matt Mullenweg politicized the platform through the use of open source

to get people to buy into it, which still, that’s like the negative side of open source.

They cudgel, if you will.

Yeah.

I mean, I just simply don’t agree with, with that perspective.

All right.

That’s fine.

That’s fine.

I definitely think-

But the point is, is like, if, if people say we should embrace open source, it’s for,

for the reasons of knowing what your code, what code you’re running, you say that’s,

that’s silly because if you can install it on your server, you can, you can see the code.

I mean, you can, when it’s something that is a piece of software, like a PHP package or

something like that.

But I encourage the use of open source because that’s not always the case.

Like open source goes far greater than just like a WordPress site.

So there’s that perspective.

Like we should encourage the use of open source because we can all see it from all pieces.

software.

I mean, from AI to your operating system, to your website.

So there’s that.

And then, and it sounds like you’re going open source with this new platform.

So it’s hard for me to follow this when one half of you is like, that’s a silly thing.

And the other half of you is I’m going to open source so this, so people can see it.

Well, I just think open source has no actual meaning.

So what, what I say, or what I’m going to do, it’s going to be free.

It’s going to have an MIT license.

You can have that mean whatever it means to you.

It’s going to be a PHP package.

Everything that’s included is going to be visible.

Everything is going to be, you know, auditable, whatever.

The thing’s going to be totally documented.

Everyone’s going to know and see everything about the platform.

There’s going to be zero hidden anything, zero shenanigans, just all straightforward, all right there for everyone to see.

Correct if I’m wrong, I think, I think, I think what Chris is saying is that in the context of WordPress, because I think I do agree with you, Matt, in general, that like, there’s a lot of software we can’t see the code for.

If it was open source and it was shared and it was, that’s like a philosophy, right, that gives us unprecedented access to things that we might not have access to.

But I think Chris’s argument maybe is that in the context of WordPress, you’d be able to see all that shit anyway.

And so their WordPress is kind of using it as a more of a marketing and a feel good and a, and we talked about the mirage of this earlier, where people go into it thinking that they have some real semblance of control, that they have some real semblance of safety.

And that if WordPress goes bad, they can just pick it up and continue on with WordPressing.

And they really just can’t do any of that.

And so a lot of it is just marketing hype that’s used to get contributors, that’s used to get people to adopt the platform.

And really the value they think is there is not all that much.

That’s a good summary of my position.

Interesting.

So, I mean, we kind of went through a couple of those things, but like, just so we’re like, I feel like tying loose ends because I do agree that every, every time I hear the words open source, it’s kind of like a different definition, so to speak.

And like we talked about earlier, like, oh, it means free.

It means this.

So you said a couple things there, particularly regardless of what the definition of that was.

Like you said, it’s going to be free.

People are going to see everything.

MIT license.

So one other thing I could think of for you, Chris, is like, can people, are you going to allow people to like fork the new platform?

Yeah, there’s nothing I can do to stop that.

You just have to maintain the attribution of the files, but that’s the, that’s the, that’s the nature of the beast.

That’s all I said.

That’s kind of the scary part of an open source license.

Like you’re naked out in front of everybody.

Somebody can just take it.

You know, I’ve learned that if the community turns on you, then you could be the loser in something like that.

But I think the reality, and there’s a larger force in play there, is that if people trust the architect and realize, well, it got to this point because of this person.

And if we turn on that person now, it’s not going to be the same thing.

I think that is real as well.

And I think this WordPress episode has kind of revealed that to a lot of people who may have otherwise not really seen that truth.

Got it.

So then the last part of it, I mean, the only other one that I could think of, we’re thinking of like line items to like compare like different types of software.

Do they do?

I do want to make a point, though.

A lot of people attribute like such and such thing to open source.

I’m like, well, open source doesn’t do anything.

It’s just an idea and a wrapper around the thing.

The software actually does the work.

So I’ve always struggled with that.

I’m like, how does open source get credit for any outcomes?

That’s really odd to me.

Yeah.

I think the last bit of it then is this idea of, again, when people say open source and they think maybe WordPress or something, it’s like we talked about a little earlier.

But you’re also saying with your new platform, they can see the code.

They can fork the code if they want.

You know, you can’t do anything for that.

But the actual, you know, we’ll call it like Project X or whatever it’s called, right?

Like this actual platform that you’re talking about here.

You’re you and potentially your team, but only you are the ones that are officially maintaining that.

So in the sense of like how WordPress works, there may be third party contributors and things like there’s not going to be any of that, if I’m correct.

And also, would you entertain or obviously theoretically here, but would you would you entertain people making third party like plugins for?

I mean, in a sense, they’d be able to technically.

Right.

So is that something that you’re going to how are you going to navigate that?

Yeah, yeah.

So the roadmap looks something like this.

I am trying to do all the basic core features, like the main component stuff.

So really themes and plugins that I’ll reveal more about this in the next couple months.

But like themes and plugins are the two main components of the system.

Everything is a plugin.

Okay.

I know it’s not like that right now with WordPress, but just imagine every little thing you see is a plugin.

That’s the way this thing works.

People can develop all the plugins they want.

The core is going to have all the core plugins it needs to be the core.

And then everything else is going to be up to the ecosystem to produce.

I don’t want to get too far in the weeds.

I think we should do another space about one theme to rule them all versus like a whole litany of themes.

I know Kevin’s been talking about that recently.

But again, I want to sort of avoid that for now.

Just imagine everything you see is a plugin.

The nav menu on the admin side is a plugin.

You know, whatever.

Just everything is a plugin.

The community can develop as many plugins as it wants.

It can do all that.

My plan is to develop that core system to make all that stuff work.

And then I know there’s areas where I’m not super expert.

And I want to make sure that the platform is completely shored in in those ways.

But once the core platform is in place and people see, oh, this is the way the code needs to be, then I’m hopefully going to be able to bring in some contributors to round out those core business parts of the platform that I know we’re all going to need if we’re going to be building business websites or whatever else for people.

So it is me for now with certainly eventually it’s like most of the ecosystem is going to be built out on a plugin basis by third party people.

And people can do whatever they want.

They run their own update servers.

They run their own thing.

It’s like if you’re a sustainable business, you’re going to be able to run your own ecosystem on this platform with no interruptions, no problems at all.

So unlike WordPress, where you have to go through the choke point of the repository, everyone will be able to run their own repository on this and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you.

So for example, if a client is running three of your plugins and you run your own update repository, they’re always going to be able to access those as long as your stuff is running.

There’s nothing the main platform can do about it.

Gotcha.

So that’s another measure of protection that I think any platform should have.

With all of that context, then if somebody, you know, once the platform’s launched and everything like that and you have all the, you know, T’s dotted or I’s dotted, T’s crossed, all that sort of stuff, right?

And you have it like operational.

If somebody asked you point blank, is this platform open source?

What would you say in like an FAQ?

Well, what do you mean by that?

Do you mean, is it open source in the sense that anyone can contribute?

Because that’s not a contribute of WordPress.

I mean, yeah, that’s a whole nother discussion.

Yeah.

But okay.

So, I mean, so you’d have to define it further.

I mean, I agree.

No, it’s not true.

No, no, no.

It’s like, no.

I have a nice house in a nice neighborhood.

I don’t let anyone have one just into the grounds of my home to litter it with trash and stuff.

We see how that goes in Austin with what’s currently going on with homeless camps everywhere.

It’s trash and shit all over the place.

I want a nice place.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I think, yeah, a lot of good context there.

I think that that’s a deeper discussion that we’ve tried to tackle before.

It’s just, it’s a hard one to fully flesh out.

Yeah.

But here’s the thing.

When the system is built the right way, the plugin is really just a way to interface with the software.

That’s all you need to make it whatever you want.

And in fact, the way this works is that any installation of this can be completely tailored to exactly what you want.

You can change the admin you wise.

You can strip stuff out.

You can have it be exactly what you want it to be.

That’s my goal is to make it so that the architect has no say in how people actually use it in the end.

You can have it.

It’s totally up to you how you want to do it.

You’re not forced to see this or that.

You can have it be exactly what you want it to be.

That’s the promise of software.

Like that’s actually good software.

Got it.

Okay.

So I think of one more to put a bow on that then is somebody comes to you, you know, because I mean, we have people in our chats here like asking, like, is there any way to like follow you?

And what you’re building, you know, through the, uh, your, your X profile and everything.

But, but for those types of people that are going to be intrigued by this, this way of thinking, this like, you know, methodology, this new technology, right?

What would like, what is the value prop?

Is it purely from a technical perspective?

Like this is like leaner and meaner than WordPress and everything like that.

And it has a lot of, you know, beneficial, like it’s still free and that type of stuff.

Is it just mainly technical?

And then the second part of the question is who is it for?

Would you say it’s for everyone?

Is it for certain people?

Like, like kind of like, where’s your methodology and that platform?

Like what’s the whole ethos around that?

Just that those two pieces.

Yeah.

That’s a great question.

So it’s for anyone.

If you’re going to build a website, you would have chosen WordPress.

Now you’re going to choose this.

Anyone who wants to build and work in paradise is going to want to do this.

Anyone who wants absolute control over the final outcome.

So like, for example, you build a site for a client, half the shit in the WordPress admin, you probably never want them to touch or see.

Really hard to get rid of that.

It’s not worth the time and the input and all that.

With this platform, you’ll be able to do that so easily.

You can create these custom tailored environments for clients that just speak to exactly what they want to do.

If all they do is create content, well, by God, that’s all the admin is going to be for them.

And that’s perfect.

So, you know, an environment that could be tailor-made to exactly what the person needs is vastly preferable, in my opinion, to what we have now.

I think you had another part to your question that I’m blanking on.

Yeah.

I mean, just that was the market part, just like what the main advantage is.

Oh, yeah.

Who’s it for?

So it’s for end users.

It’s for builders.

It’s for everyone who’s choosing WordPress now.

This will be what you choose in the future.

That’s a huge chunk of people.

If you want to build a website and make pages for the future, that’s the way to do it.

Cool.

Sweet.

Kevin, you got anything?

I’m just – we started on how websites need to be different.

We’ve got so many places.

It’s fun, though.

It’s fun.

No, I think we definitely need to come back and talk about some individual topics in more depth, like open source for sure.

I’ve got more – I’m actually about to do a video on it in the context of WordPress, specifically in the context of the existence of the license and how it’s being used.

Because I think that’s part of the – that’s part of what exposes the fairy tale a little bit.

Again, not against open source.

Like I agree with what Matt says and like his arguments outside of the context of WordPress.

I think WordPress has created a very different context of open source.

The way they use that term, the way they promote that term and what they – and how they’re using their license.

So I think we have to come back and talk about that.

My audience specifically, I’m reading the chat.

They want to talk more about the Gutenberg side of things.

They want to talk more about the plug-in only concept.

So there’s two additional rabbit holes that we can go down.

Yeah, it’s – I mean we’re all over the map here.

So one point I forgot to make, so Mark asked earlier, if people want to follow along, my YouTube channel is the best place for just that kind of content.

You get no other noise, no other junk.

It’s at TheRealPersonified is my YouTube channel.

I’ve just been posting basically future website type stuff since last October, basically since the WordPress thing blew up.

So that is the place to see all that content.

Sweet.

I’ll drop that in my chat.

People were asking about that.

I appreciate that.

Sweet.

Let’s do a final call.

If you are in the listener pool and you want to be in the speaker pool, you need to raise your hand ASAP.

Matt, you’re still in the speaker pool.

Do you have any final thoughts?

I don’t know if he’s technically just a listener now or if he’s still with us.

This UI leaves some to be desired.

It does.

Sometimes it’s a little wonky.

He’s got a muted mic on my UI.

Yeah.

It’s a little weird.

I think – I was looking for comments in my chat and everything.

I think for the most part, people are just intrigued by the discussion.

They didn’t have a ton to add.

I mean, like here’s something, just an image I want to leave you with.

So Matt works with Gravity Forms, which is a very successful WordPress plugin.

I can’t wait until people can see the contrast between the code base for what it takes to have Gravity Forms on WordPress versus what it will take to have it on my platform.

That right there.

Once people see that, that will be the thing you cannot unsee.

If you have dealt with stuff like this, if you have built stuff like this, once you see when your code base is like seriously 15% the size it used to be and way more organized and easy to mess with, things change.

Even the thoughts about the subscription model begin to change.

You’re like, well, damn, it really doesn’t take that much work at all, does it?

So I’m just saying this is a – it’s a transformative thing when you actually get to work in paradise.

What kind of timeline are we on to arrive at paradise?

This is the greatest question of all.

So I got beat to death with this when I was developing Thesis 2 from 2010 to 2012.

I had no idea how long it would take.

It ended up taking me two years to get the first product out the door and another year or so of refinements before it was really ready for action.

Now, that was my first time hacking through the jungle, so it’s really hard on that first pass.

I have that experience behind me now, so I can do it more quickly now.

But the reality is all the stuff that WordPress does is a lot.

It is a lot.

So I’ve pretty much got the basics of the theme system built.

I’ve pretty much got the basics of the plugin system built.

That is huge, but, like, user management’s not there.

There’s no e-commerce stuff.

That’s even going to be, like, a phase two thing.

So the platform will be out and released before the e-com capabilities are even added.

I have an editor, and I mostly know how the editor is going to work and be incorporated, but, like, it’s not actually all the way incorporated yet.

So, I mean, there’s just a lot of little stuff to button up that I know is going to take a lot of time, and it’s just hard to predict.

So I don’t know.

I want to have this thing running in operable sometime in March, but it could be a year after that before it’s really bad already.

Now, I obviously don’t want it to be that long.

I’m hopeful that I can really have something that’s compelling to show by the summer.

But, you know, you never – it’s hard to say.

It is hard to say.

It’s like when you do something for the first time, it’s hard to say.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I’m sure Mark and I, we’re going to keep our eye on it.

We’re going to put the links in the show notes and the descriptions on the channel so that everybody else can keep an eye on it.

And I think what we’re definitely going to do is schedule you back for some more focused discussions in some of these different areas because it’s always fun.

It’s always spicy.

Yeah.

We should do – we should talk about the theme, bro, because you mentioned it.

You nailed it.

The truth is in one theme to rule them all, but that should be the topic.

Let’s do it.

Because that’s not well understood.

All right.

We’ll get you – we’ll get with you behind the scenes.

We’ll schedule another one.

But for now, we’ll put this one in the books.

Chris Pearson, everybody, thanks for coming on.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks for having me, guys.

It’s fun.

And good –

Thank you.