The recent pushback regarding WordPress.org’s removal of active install growth data shouldn’t be too surprising. It’s not the first time that a decision made by WordPress leadership has ruffled some feathers. But perhaps the people most directly impacted by the move – plugin developers – were a bit unexpected. After all, a thriving plugin ecosystem is key to keeping WordPress growing and relevant. It’s fair to wonder why anyone would want to upset this particular apple cart. Logic tells me that you’d want to do everything possible to keep this group happy. That in turn encourages developers to continue to invest in the platform. By contributing their products, and perhaps being part of the Five for the Future program, there are numerous opportunities to make a positive impact. However, it’s not quite that simple. The above assumes that: a) everyone’s on the same page, and b) all involved parties have purely altruistic motives. That’s just not the reality of WordPress – or any other community on this planet. There’s always going to be some push-and-pull between plugin developers and WordPress. The question is: what should plugin developers realistically expect from the platform and its leadership? The Limited Partnership between Developers and Leadership On the surface, the partnership between plugin developers and WordPress leadership is mutually beneficial. At their best, these entities can help each other thrive. And each deserves gratitude for the role they play. But there are limits. Even though the WordPress project is open-source and not-for-profit, money is still at stake. Many plugin developers and service providers (including Matt Mullenweg’s Automattic) are for-profit businesses. And while most want to provide benefit to others, they’re still obliged to consider their needs first. This brings us to the issue of active install growth data for plugins. In a competitive landscape, entrepreneurs will undoubtedly use available data to their advantage. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s just the way business works. Yet sometimes how that data is leveraged will go against the grain. It could impact the WordPress community and project in ways that leadership isn’t comfortable with. Not everyone is interested in a level playing field. And we’ve seen instances where companies have used dark patterns and questionable marketing tactics to get ahead. Meanwhile, WordPress.org has made these stats publicly available for years. Plugin authors have made it clear that the data is useful to them. However, no rule says WordPress must continue doing so. Fair or not, they can add or subtract metrics as they see fit. The optics of the decision were decidedly unflattering. And there has been plenty of debate on whether removing the data was justified. Still, this friction is a prime example of the relationship’s limitations. WordPress Doesn’t Have to Help Developers Make Money Whether you’re a plugin developer or a freelancer serving clients, it’s possible to make a good living with WordPress. The software provides a solid foundation on which to build your business. Odds are that this narrative describes many people’s journeys to some degree. We can also admire the WordPress community’s history of being relatively open and its willingness to share knowledge. It’s something we see at WordCamps, on social media, and within walled gardens such as Post Status and The WP Minute. Indeed, the software is wonderful and so are many of the people involved. But we shouldn’t confuse them with the goals of the WordPress project and its leadership. The project provides us with a tool and documentation that demonstrates how to use it. It encourages us to add customizations to the mix. It also asks that we give back to keep the lights on and the software relevant. But maybe that’s as far as it goes. Perhaps WordPress leadership wishes us well while maintaining its distance. They’re not necessarily concerned with what business owners want. Could it be that we’re in this together – but only to a certain point? For someone who was attracted to WordPress because of its “everything is free” vibe, I think that’s disappointing. At the same time, it may also explain why leadership doesn’t seem eager to communicate its reasoning behind controversial decisions. WordPress Plugin Developers Must Make Their Own Way In a perfect world, both the WordPress project and plugin developers would walk hand-in-hand. But their interests diverge at some point along the way. Thus, there’s an inevitable parting. That doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for collaboration. It’s still in everyone’s best interest to get along and make WordPress the best it can be. But perhaps we shouldn’t have any false illusions about this relationship. For what it’s worth, I’d love to see leadership step out of its comfort zone and provide in-depth details about its decision-making process. I think so much of the frustration and mistrust we see could be avoided by simply talking about the issues of the day. In the meantime, the plugin developer community must come to grips with the hand they’ve been dealt. There will always be some level of disconnect between the needs of WordPress and its ecosystem. That isn’t likely to change. That means developers may have to learn to rely on each other more than the platform they use. ★ Support this podcast ★

The conversation regarding the removal of WordPress plugin active install growth data has continued this week. The data chart was officially removed from the WordPress.org plugin repository back on September 29, 2022. Even as plugin authors and other community members have asked for the chart’s return, no formal reason has been given for its removal. The possibilities of privacy and security issues have been brought up, but there’s been no official announcement from WordPress leadership. Over at WP Tavern, Sarah Gooding reports on a Trac ticket discussion started by Mark Zahra. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has chimed in and said that adding relevant statistics for plugin authors “...will take some work but it’s doable.” Mullenweg also responded to a tweet from Zahra stating, “We’ll add something new for small plug-in devs.” Meanwhile, the community continues to express concern. Investor and artist Jean Galea wondered if WordPress is entering a “death spiral”. And MasterWP’s Rob Howard says WordPress may be turning away its biggest fans. Next up (listen to the podcast for more): Michelle Frechette with the Community Minute! Links You Shouldn’t Miss MasterWP’s WordCamp travel sponsorship program plans to keep on rolling in 2023. It aims to enable a diverse group of people to attend events by defraying travel costs. This year, the program helped seven recipients head to WordCamp US in San Diego, California. Rob Howard wrote about the reasoning behind and the impact of the program. There’s also a form for anyone interested in receiving a travel stipend to attend WordCamp US 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland. Howard also put out a call for potential sponsors. For our part, the WP Minute has made a $1,500 contribution. From the Grab Bag Now it’s time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors. A hosted WooCommerce package will be coming to WordPress.com in 2023.Carl Alexander took a look at the ups and downs of contributing to WordPress outside of the official project.Matt Cromwell and Kim Coleman sat down with AccessAlly founder Nathalie Lussier to discuss outlining a WordPress product roadmap.WordPress 6.1 will see a performance boost, thanks to the addition of database query caching.A familiar name is listed in Newsweek’s “America's 100 Most Loved Workplaces 2022” rankings. Automattic, owner of WordPress.com and founded by Matt Mullenweg, came in at #31 this year.Open source search engine Meilisearch recently announced $15 million Series A round funding. Classifieds listings buy yours WebDevStudios WebDevStudios is seeking a full time, remote Engineering Manager candidate interested in joining our growing team.Sitewide Sales Are you literally losing sleep on Black Friday? Schedule your WordPress site's Black Friday sale so you can sleep off Thanksgiving dinner.GapScout Sign-Up for Early Access - AI that scans reviews (on WordPress.org or elsewhere), revealing to you the most profitable opportunities! New Members This Week  Dominyka Mikšenaite Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Lesley SimDave RodenbaughJohn LockeAngela Bowman ★ Support this podcast ★

WP Product talk is back with co-hosts Matt Cromwell and Kim Coleman sitting down to discuss outlining a WordPress product roadmap. Nathalie Lussier joins the crew to chat about how she and her team plan the AccessAlly course software development. Follow Matt & Kim on Twitter to participate in the weekly WP Product talk Spaces. Stay subscribed here to catch the edited recording! Links Kim ColemanNathalie LussierMatt CromwellPaid Memberships ProAccessAllyGiveWPSupport the WP Minute ★ Support this podcast ★

The WordPress plugin ecosystem has been a big topic of discussion recently. WP Mayor’s Mark Zahra started things off with an in-depth article regarding deceptive marketing practices. Zahra provides specific examples of questionable tactics used by WordPress plugin developers. He also calls on the community - himself included - to think about the potential harm to WordPress’ reputation. Zahra didn’t stop there. He also noted that the WordPress.org plugin repository has removed the active install growth chart. This feature allowed plugin developers to gauge how their products performed over time. Over at WP Tavern, Sarah Gooding reports that there’s been no clear indication of why the metric was pulled. Zahra also expanded on the topic over at MasterWP. And if you’re interested in learning how to monetize your own WordPress product, be sure to listen to Kim Coleman and Matt Cromwell’s WP Product Talk Twitter Space. Links You Shouldn’t Miss The WordPress themes team has decided to delay the inclusion of locally-hosted Google fonts in legacy default themes until version 6.2. As Sarah Gooding reports at WP Tavern, the move was originally scheduled for version 6.1. This has some community members concerned, as a German court recently ruled that remotely-hosted fonts are a violation of the European Union’s GDPR laws. The 2022 Web Almanac was released by HTTP Archive. The report aims to point out trends in the industry. As you may have guessed, WordPress once again has the top spot in CMS usage, with a reported 35% market share. Last week’s story covering the controversial, racially-tinged remarks on a now-removed episode of the WP-Tonic podcast continues to spark discussion. WP Watercool took on the topic of microagression, while Allie Nimmons and Michelle Frechette of Underrepresented in Tech looked at the idea of reverse racism. From the Grab Bag Now it’s time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors. WordPress 6.1 Beta 3 is now available for testing.WordCamp Phoenix has been scheduled for March 24-25, 2023. Outside of WordCamp US, it's the only stateside camp confirmed for 2023.Jonathan Wold discusses Using The Loop To Grow A WordPress Product CompanyDan Knauss at Post Status asks WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Why Do We Make It So Hard?WP Motivate explores Finding Inspiration in the CompostThe WP Trends newsletter makes a triumphant comebackGoDaddy Pro hosted a Twitter Space on the Future of Contributing to WordPress New Members This Week Nev Harris, follow @thenevharris If you’re not a member yet, go to buymeacoffee.com/mattreport to join. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Mark ZahraCameron JonesEric KarkovackDaniel SchutzsmithPaul LaceyMichelle FrechetteRaquel LandefeldAbha Thakor ★ Support this podcast ★

Matt Cromwell and Kim Coleman are back with their second episode of WP Product Talk! They're joined by Lesley Sim, of Newsletter Glue, to discuss the decision-making around building a new product. You could be at the crossroads of launching a new major feature or pivoting your whole WordPress product business. Don't miss this episode! ★ Support this podcast ★

There is a new demo to try out on make.wordpress.org where you can run WordPress directly in the browser without a PHP server. Although it is not fully stable yet, it is a major breakthrough that could transform learning, contributing, and using WordPress. Go check out the post to learn more about how you can test it out. Jesse Friedman, Director of innovation at Automattic was interviewed on the WP Minute about the wp.cloud initiative. If you would like to know more about this, go listen to that interview. WooCommerce WooCommerce Blocks 8.6.0 was released with support for a new block that displays cross-sells for products that are based on the current product in the customer’s cart. Sarah Gooding covers the details over at the WP Tavern. From Our Contributors and Producers Nyasha Green, the Editorial Director over at MasterWP was further encouraged to write “Enough with this woke stuff: and other racist speech you can unlearn” after WP-Tonic’s co-hosts died on a hill attempting to deconstruct racism in the workplace, following an article regarding Twillio layoffs. The episode has since been removed from their podcast feed and YouTube channel. To hear an archived clip, Cameron Jones shared an article from Tom Finley that discusses racism as a weed and this type of speech does not represent WordPress. Further, Allie Nimmons has announced a “How to be an Ally” workshop. It kicks off on October 4th at 3PM.  If you want to try out a visual collaboration tool with your clients, the Atarim plugin is now available in the WordPress Repository. This is a great tool to use when you have more than one person making changes to a website that you are working on. Have questions about WordPress? Daniel Schutzsmith shared a link for  Ask.wp. This is a project by Terry Tsang to act as a "Super Brain" for the WordPress community using a chat bot. Want to start your week with a little motivation? Kathy Zant and Michelle Frechette have teamed up with a new podcast called WP Motivate.  You can listen to their first podcast to…get motivated.  Want to learn more about monetizing free WordPress products? Go check out the episode on the WP Minute with Kim Coleman and Matt Cromwell with their new WP Product Talk Twitter Space. Canva is jumping into the website building game citing that 2 million websites were made with their beta release of their web builder software. Jamie Marsland recorded a YouTube video about this and It will be interesting to see if Canva impacts WordPress in the future. Is there “angst” in the page builder community with the direction of Gutenberg and WordPress core? Paul Lacey shares an article from David Waumsley about how the direction of WordPress is forcing him to take a look at other products. David’s article on researching Jamstack is an area of website building to explore. New Member: This week we welcome Lesley Sim to the #linksquad crew. Cape Dave has donated 3 coffees this week. Thanks, Dave! If you’re not a member yet, go to buymeacoffee.com/mattreport to join. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Birgit Pauli-HackEric KarkovacCameron JonesAndrew PalmerJohn LockeDaniel ShutzsmithMichelle FrechetteJustin FerrimanPaul Lacey ★ Support this podcast ★

Today's episode is a recording of Kim Coleman's and Matt Cromwell's WP Product Talk Twitter Space. The duo share their professional WordPress updates and talk WordPress product pricing. The good, the bad, of offering free WordPress products. Make sure to give them a follow and tune in to their Twitter Space happening today with Lesley Sim. Listen here. ★ Support this podcast ★

If you missed Matt Mullenweg's address at WordCamp US 2022, he snuck in a mention of the new hosting infrastructure without much context around it. Could Automattic be building out the next WordPress hosting company behind the scenes? What if you wanted to launch a WooCommerce specific hosting company? Possibly a solution that end users didn't even know was running WordPress? I reached out to Jesse Friedman, Director of innovation at Automattic, now leading the WP.cloud product with a series of questions to explore this new topic a bit further. ★ Support this podcast ★

Adobe set to acquire Figma If you’re a designer or UI specialist in the WordPress world, chances are you already know about the Adobe/Figma deal. A $20 Billion dollar deal in cash and stock – 40 times Figma revenue – shocked us and launched more memes, probably using Photoshop, than we’ve in the tech space since…well about 4 months ago. 4 Years ago, Figma donated an organizational membership to WordPress.org. Will you continue to use Figma? Tweet at us. In Mullenweg’s recent WCUS address, he snuck in the mention of Automattic’s new cloud service – wp.cloud. It looks to be infrastructure for cloud providers wanting to serve up some WordPress hosting, leveraging .com’s sprawling CDN & other technology. Products like Jetpack already use .com’s CDN as part of their services, as I’m sure other products like VideoPress do.  I reached out to Jesse Friedman, who leads the wp.cloud initiative, for an interview. Here’s a sneak peek of that, which airs next week – subscribe so you don’t miss it! Hosting news continues with WP Engine jumping into the WordPress flavor hosting with a new WooCommerce offering. While Siteground surprises us with their Easy Digital Downloads speciality hosting. Next up (listen to the podcast for more): Michelle Frechette with the Community Minute & Amber Hinds with the Accessibility Minute! Links you shouldn’t miss There’s a handful of other links you shouldn’t miss this week. These links should help you stay informed around the moving and shaking of WordPress: Matt Mullenweg WCUS Address This is a direct recording of his livestream session. If you missed it or want to hear the audience Q&A round, click to tune in. Why WordPress and Wix will Always Be Worlds Apart The WP Minute’s Eric Karkovack, breaks down a detailed comparison on how much WordPress & Wix differ.  Help Test WordPress 6.1 The WordPress 6.1 Beta is out! Remember, don’t complain…explain…your issues by testing the latest version before it's released.  From the grab bag Some of these links might interest you – dive in! ACF 6.0 is releasedWebP pulled from 6.xSyed Bahlki makes an interesting prediction about the future of WordPressMatt Cromwell launched WP Product Shop Talk Twitter Spaces. Subscribe to The WP Minute as this show will be exclusively syndicated through our podcast feed. Thanks to all of the members who shared these links today:  Eric KarkovackDaniel ShutzsmithRaquel LandefeldCameron JonesBirgit Pauli-HackMichelle FrechetteAngela Bowman ★ Support this podcast ★

Today's episode is a recording from the official WCUS 2022 livestream found in this video. We've extracted the Matt Mullenweg session which includes some of his outlook on WordPress 6.1, community, and a Q&A session from the audience. If you had a chance to attend WCUS, send us a tweet about your favorite session or experience. Photograph by Daniel Schutzsmith ★ Support this podcast ★