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WordPress.com owner (Matt) bashes on WP Engine (and Silver Lake Capital)

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A bit of a controversial talk on the latest WordCamp, by the WordPress.com owner Matt Mullenweg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEcz7DrjYvY

Video timelines:
07:08:25 Mat gets on stage (along with the 2nd "t")
07:15:22 Prelude to the Lake Capital bashing
07:17:55 Bashing starts :)
07:20:10 Praising Newfold, Hostinger, and Google
07:21:12 Midlife crisis discussion
07:22:35 Mic broke?
07:26:20 WP Engine bash
07:28:55 Q1 'Did you really have to do this bashing?'
07:32:10 Q2 Question about crypto.
07:35:26 Q3 Question about Gutenberg turned into more WP Engine bashing :)
07:39:55 Q4 Matt accused of 'punching down'
07:43:00 Q5 Question about acquisitions - and more WP Engine bashing :)
07:45:20 Q6 Almost questions capitalism
07:50:20 Q7 An uplifting Wordpress praise (was that a small 'p'? :) )
07:52:09 Q8 Discussing the AI and the future
07:58:05 Q9 Theme and plugin development discussion
08:01:05 Q10 Wordpress robustness and auto-update praise, and classic editor EOL question
08:05:00 Q11 A funny note about the classic editor
08:05:56 Q12 Challenge accepted! :)

I don't use nor would I recommend WP Engine - my favourite hosting provider is a small privately owned US business - and I use Wordpress for writing cycling-related info and tutorials. :) And yes... I... I actually prefer the block editor. LOL.

Now, that was an interesting discussion. It is not often that you can hear one huge corporation bashing another huge corporation (Lake Capital investment fond actually) after it has bouth the WP Engine hosting provider (that in turn bought some other WordPress-related services). That trend (of huge investment fonds acquiring and destroying everything) is bad. I wrote an article noting some of the largest acquisitions (but not all):
https://io.bikegremlin.com/33007/who-owns-who/

I also find it ironic that the Newfold Digital (a behemoth that destroyed many hosting providers and is basically doing what the Lake Capital was accused of) and Google (that is destroying many small, independent websites like mine among others) got highly praised - only because they contribute money to WordPress development (which is used to further the profits of the speaker's company among others).
 
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A response from the WP Engine company:

https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf
The problematic article on wordpress.org:
https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/
Wayback machine archive for the doccuments:
A creenshot from my WordPress dashboard showing the "anti-WP Engine" article link:

A screenshot from my WordPress dashboard
 
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The drama continues. Automattic (wordpress.com, owned by Matt Mullenweg) now sent a cease & desist letter to WP Engine:

https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist.pdf
Wayback machine copy - just in case:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240925004750/https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist.pdf

To be clear - I have no horse in this race and neither of the two companies involved would be my first choice (nor a recommendation) for "WordPress hosting."

Edit:

wordpressfoundation.org trademark policy page has been edited to what appears to be serving the purpose of this cease & desist letter from Automattic:

https://www.diffchecker.com/tJ29tGIn/

Wayback Machine copy - just in case stuff gets deleted:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240925065630/https://www.diffchecker.com/tJ29tGIn/

Another news regarding this mess is that the "WordPress Foundation" (where Matt is one of the three board members) has filed to trademark the terms "Managed WordPress," and "Hosted WordPress":

Newfold digital (that owns Bluehost and Yoast to name a few - a list of Newfold owned companies) is allowed to use the trademarked words, according to the WordPress Foundation's trademark policy page.

Speaking of Newfold, apparently they are offering "WordPress cloud hosting":
Bluehost Cloud, in partnership with Automattic, offers a first-of-its-kind WordPress platform providing users with unmatched speed and performance.
https://newfold.com/newsroom/website-professionals-can-now-take-advantage-of-the-new-bluehost

https://web.archive.org/web/20240425113731/https://newfold.com/newsroom/website-professionals-can-now-take-advantage-of-the-new-bluehost

This keeps getting crazier and crazier.
 
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My opinion

For about a decade I've been building and running my own websites, and websites for other people using the self-hosted WordPress (wp.org vs wp.com difference explained), troubleshooting websites, migrating them from one hosting provider to another, cleaning hacked sites, creating backups etc. I've also done a lot of teaching (tutoring).

In my experience, people don't get confused by WP Engine to represent WordPress. Quite the contrary: most people get confused between Automattic's (Matt's) wordpress.com, and the free, self hosted wordpress.org. That is, people go to wordpress.com to make a website and soon realize they must pay a lot of money in order to get the full functionality of WordPress (for example, to be able to install plugins, which is the most basic WordPress function).

To make stuff worse regarding the paid (wp .com) vs the free (wp .org) version, Automattic scraped and cloned the entire wordpress.org plugin repository to their wordpress.com domain. This added to the confusion in terms of people googling for plugins, and thinking they must go with an expensive wordpress.com hosting plan in order to install them (even though the plugins can be installed for free on a self-hosted wordpress installation).

WP Engine, on the other hand, offers very expensive managed WordPress hosting. It was bought out by an investment fund, and I would not use nor recommend it for hosting (or working at for that matter). That is my opinion based on my knowledge, experience, and information. Nothing more, nothing less.

Basically, all this mess looks like a case of kettle meets the pot, i.e. two (ruthless?) corporations bashing each other, looking to make more money for themselves and "beat the competition." It isn't nice, it looks quite dirty.

In defense of WP Engine, also fair noting, they did buy out but keep the maintenance of the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields), a plugin that helps a huge number of WordPress developers build stuff. They've even honoured the lifetime licenses sold to customers before the original developer (Delicious Brains) was bought out by the WP Engine (I am a happy owner and user of one such licence).

Automattic too has greatly contributed to WordPress development, with countless plugins including (but not limited to) WooCommerce, which enables running web shops.

It's not black and white. It is grey.

P.S.
I've already written about the problems with Trustpilot's policies and trustworthiness.
So, with that disclaimer in mind, I took a look at the most recent reviews for wordpress.com and WP Engine. I've noticed that after the Matt's talk at the WordPress conference, two very bad reviews were published about the WP Engine - after many positive reviews before that. For wordpress.com, on the other hand, many (most) reviews are very bad.
 
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Now this is outrageously childlish - banning WP Engine (and all their customers) from accessing WordPress .org updates:

https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
https://web.archive.org/web/20240926033121/https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/

In this scenario, discussing the quality of WP Engine hosting is a red herring by the Automattic. Matt Mullenweg and the Automattic for profit company is behind this, obviously.

Apparently, WordPress is too popular and there is too much money in play to just let it be really free and open source without someone holding a tight control over it.

If we wish to discuss hosting, I would argue that the top recommended provider on the wordpress.org hosting recommendations page, BlueHost, is not any better than WP Engine (to say the least).

Another "jewel" is that Pressable, a hosting provider owned by Automattic (read: Matt), has just offered to "buy out" any WP Engine hosting contracts/accounts and get their users to move to Pressable hosting:
https://pressable.com/wpe-contract-buyout/
https://web.archive.org/web/20240926004706/https://pressable.com/wpe-contract-buyout/

Since the hosting offers innevitably get questioned and discussed regarding this "WordPress drama", here are my hosting recommendations (based on my knowledge, information, and experience).

P.S.
I've just published an article related to this topic:
WordPress.com is NOT WordPress (.org)
 
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I've found two great articles that sum up this whole mess:

I've also just watched this very recent interview with Matt Mullenweg, discussing the latest drama:


The way I see the interview:

Matt tries to justify going after WP Engine.

For example: He's accusing them of editing affiliate code of a free open source payment plugin - when it is perfectly legal to edit that, and no one should be forced to use Automattic's affiliate links on their platform.
Update: this accusation has been debunked. WP Engine made their own payment plugin and, apparently, didn't bother editing Automattic's one.

Matt is a CEO of one corporation, with investment funds, and he talks about investment funds being "capricious and evil." Well, yes, but I don't see any difference. He's also playing naivety - a large corporation CEO?

The sneaky part is that Matt deliberately and explicitly singled out WP Engine. Saying that "every other web host in the world, we have no beef with." This is very sneaky - trying to get the community to let WP Engine burn. Taking out one by one, not the entire community at the time. That is nothing new - "divide et impera."

Matt's Automattic is in a special position when it comes to WordPress hosting. They own the trademark and the wordpress.com domain. So, they are in a position to mostly profit from wordpress.org submitted themes and plugins (made for free by countless contributors, with or without paid add-ons, sure), and from WordPress core development. Also, Automattic gets to decide what gets developed for the core, basically. It is not a democracy (nor it should be IMO, fair enough). So Automattic has financial interest to support wordpress.org and WordPress core development.

He has openly told people to switch from WP Engine to Bluehost. Bluehost is probably one of the worst options for hosting and that is widely known in the hosting community, for crying out loud?!?! Sources:
You get the picture.
 
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More, well, I must say: bullshit from Automattic.

https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/

Quote from that article:
WP Engine was well aware that we could remove access when they chose to ignore our efforts to resolve our differences and enter into a commercial licensing agreement.
<snip> (see the link above for the entire drivel)
We have lifted the blocks of their servers from accessing ours, until October 1, UTC 00:00. Hopefully this helps them spin up their mirrors of all of WordPress.org’s resources that they were using for free while not paying, and making legal threats against us.

Why is this cruel and cynical? Because the plugin and theme repository at wordpress.org is kept more-less clean thanks to thousands of volunteers around the globe (vetting themes and plugins, doing translations etc.). All those folks can't impose any trademarks, but they could say to both Automattic and WP Engine: "we won't be doing any more work for free." Or, if they decided to work on a different repository copy (one made by WP Engine, or some third party). That would split the community and be a detriment for every WordPress user (and site owner) around the world.

There is great strength in unity and human cooperation. These actions by Automattic are splitting the community.
 

There are no good guys in this story​

It is two investment funds using companies as fronts and fighting for profits.

All the “commons” will pay the price regardless of how this ends (who wins).
 
Matt gave a long interview:


The takeaways:
He's disabled WP Engine's WordPress account, so they can't update their hugely popular ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin. When the host noted that this would affect thousands of customers who are using the free plugin (and not even paying anything to WP Engine, nor necessarily hosting there), Matt smugly laughed and said "they are paying 500 million to WP Engine."

Now, after having driven many WP Engine customers away and brought their price down, Matt ("Automattic") plans to buy them off:

https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-corporate-takeover-of-wp-engine

I wonder who's next. And I really don't like bullies.
 
WordPress.org hosting recommendation page had wordpress.com listed as a recommended host (at the bottom of the list).
The Wayback Machine snapshot:
https://web.archive.org/web/20241001211828/https://wordpress.org/hosting/
Now, it lists Pressable at the top. Pressable is owned by Automattic (wordpress.com), but no longer lists wordpress.com.

WP Engine has posted a legal complaint regarding the public speaking and actions taken against them:
https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al-with-Exhibit.pdf
This is the Automattic's response to that (TL/DR "your claim is nonsense, see you in court"):
https://automattic.com/2024/10/03/meritless/
WP Engine has also created a separate download page for the free version of their ACF plugin (since their access to the wordpress.org plugin repository has been blocked:
https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/latest/
Video where the interviewer discussed the "fallout" that took place after the interview (link to the post above):


In the meantime, over 150 people have taken a (generous) severance option to leave Automattic:
https://ma.tt/2024/10/alignment/
https://web.archive.org/web/20241004102410/https://ma.tt/2024/10/alignment/

A nonsense reply just recently (after 2 years) about putting plugin developers' available info on equal terms with what's available to Automattic:

https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6511
 
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Every day gets crazier and crazier. Now, apparently, Matt Mullenweg (or Automattic... or WordPress.org - the lines are very blurry between those, if they exist at all) has tweeted that there is a vulnerability found in the ACF bug, and if it's not fixed within 30 days, the plugin will be removed from the wordpress.org repository.

Note, this is right after they've banned the ACF developers (now WP Engine employees) from accessing the plugin repo in order to upload any updates or patches.

AuotoMattic threatens with ACF plugin removal


The tweets haw now been removed as far as I can tell - hadn't caught a Wayback Machine copy of them, but did see them while they were available.

To quote a (volunteer?) WordPress core security team lead:
John Blackbourn
@johnbillion

Automattic has responsibly disclosed a vulnerability in ACF but breached the
@Intigriti
Code of Conduct by irresponsibly announcing it publicly. I am going to work my damned hardest to ensure that the fix gets shipped to dotorg if it affects the free version of ACF.

Contributors who have been banned from wordpress.org repository without being WP Engine employees - i.e. just for criticizing what Matt has been doing recently:
 
It's getting more and more ridiculous each day. This is the login screen I got this morning (now, the link to the WP Engine's cease and dessist tweet has been removed, but the checker about the WP Engine affiliation is still present):

wordpress.org login checker box about WP Engine affiliation


At the same time, wordpress.com has no checkbox:

 
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The free Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin was practically stolen by Automattic (or wordpress.org - if you've followed this whole ordeal it is clear that Matt Mullenweg pulls the strings of both).

They've just renamed it to "Secure Custom Fields" (a bit ironic considering they had banned the original owner from updating and patching it) and kept all the user base, installs (and updates) and user reviews:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/

They are calling it a fork, but I see this as theft. A fork would have been a blank, clean plugin in the repo, starting with zero installs and user reviews.

This worries me. My websites run on Wordpress, and right now I have more faith in the paid non-open source XenForo software that this forum runs on than I do in the (allegedly, but not really) free open source Wordpress.

P.S.
This is how to install the original ACF (and other WP Engine owned plugins) even if your installation got "switched" to the "Secure Custom Fields"):

https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/installing-and-upgrading-to-the-latest-version-of-acf/
 
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Following the above-discussed events, plugin updating from alternative resources has just been disabled by the wordpress.org repository.

Tweet on the topic.

Relevant GitHub discussion:


Automattic wants a total control, apparently.
 

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