#84 – Aaron Reimann on WordPress’ First Twenty Years  ## Metadata - Author: [[WP Tavern]] - Full Title: #84 – Aaron Reimann on WordPress’ First Twenty Years - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c9c5613f-c40c-45a0-8d08-02812684a505 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Switch from CMS Made Simple to WordPress** - Aaron started using CMS Made Simple before switching to WordPress due to its growing community and plugin ecosystem. - His business partner appreciated WordPress's easy one-click installation, highlighting its accessibility. Transcript: Speaker 2 Be. Yeah. So in 2008, I actually started using CMS made simple because I saw it as easier than WordPress and more featured than WordPress. But WordPress is one of those things where once you get the ball rolling, WordPress became unstoppable because it had so many more people joining and adding to the community, which Means more plugins, more features, more everything. And so I dropped CMS made simple after building about three websites, I think, who ended up dropping that to use WordPress. And I also had a business partner that wasn't technical at all. And he really liked the fact that he could, I don't know if it was CPanel or some kind of hosting platform, gave him a one button push to install WordPress. And so he could start working on a website and he didn't have to do anything technical. ([Time 0:09:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/05724fe6-77de-4269-b584-43370e47ec74)) - **Simple UI Defines WordPress** - WordPress's UI was simpler and more visually appealing compared to rivals like Joomla and Drupal. - This ease of use was key to its widespread adoption despite competitors having more features. Transcript: Speaker 2 To install. Speaker 1 Yeah. I genuinely thought that at the time, at least I was using different platforms. I came to WordPress in probably about 2015, so a long time after you. And I played with all these other ones. And in many cases, I felt that the features that they offered was superior. But the one thing that separated them from WordPress, the one thing that I should probably say, the one thing that separated WordPress from them was the UI. I felt that the UI was much more straightforward to use. It was actually quite beautiful. It hasn't changed much in those years. It was just easier on the eye. It was much more straightforward. ([Time 0:10:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4f778630-3651-42d2-9743-2839343878ba)) - **Plugins Power WordPress Growth** - The introduction of plugin architecture transformed WordPress from a simple blog to a versatile platform. - Plugins enable nearly limitless website functionality, which fueled WordPress's massive growth. Transcript: Speaker 2 Framework. Then in 1.5 is when we got things. To me, I think we could probably talk the rest of the show about those two things. Probably shouldn't, but we could. Speaker 1 I think themes and plugins. Plugins, in particular, I think, are where, for me at least, a lot of the magic has lay. A lot of the success is down to third-party developers and the plugin architecture of WordPress. WordPress's mission to democratize publishing is laudable, and it would be lovely, but a bare-bones version of WordPress, a vanilla version of WordPress, will only get you so far If you want something complicated. The ability to open up WordPress to plugin developers was pretty seismic, I think. Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree. With plugins also comes with Bloat, which is the thing that I run into. I mentioned it on my talk. Someone asked me a plugin question, and I said, the worst site I ever worked on, I logged in once, and I said, I'm not going to work on this site, because there were 104 active plugins active. There were some inactive ones there. I said, I'm afraid to edit anything. So plugins are a blessing, and if you don't know enough about what that can do to your site, it becomes a curse. ([Time 0:13:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a7c3e27a-b687-4d54-9b6c-d0dde3594bc8)) - **Avoid Plugin Overload** - Beware excessive plugins as they cause bloat, slow performance, and maintenance headaches. - Understanding plugin impacts and cleaning unused plugins improves site stability. Transcript: Speaker 2 Thing that I run into. I mentioned it on my talk. Someone asked me a plugin question, and I said, the worst site I ever worked on, I logged in once, and I said, I'm not going to work on this site, because there were 104 active plugins active. There were some inactive ones there. I said, I'm afraid to edit anything. So plugins are a blessing, and if you don't know enough about what that can do to your site, it becomes a curse. Speaker 1 Yeah, I've had similar experiences where there's just simply too much on there. And for WordPress's promise to make it possible for almost anybody to create a website, maintain a website, update a website, that can be difficult, because there is no indication Anywhere that if you're adding more plugins, you're adding more Bloat, you're adding more time for pages to load, because there's things going on in the background. Speaker 2 It's creating more tables in the database, and that is one of the things that you'll see. People will have a live website, and they'll try a bunch of plugins, and they'll ([Time 0:14:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4bdf181a-169a-4b94-a526-d17ef2cf0fdb)) - **Themes Boost WordPress Appeal** - Themes played a crucial role by enabling non-designers to create attractive websites easily. - The theming ecosystem became a commercial industry, attracting many to WordPress despite sometimes bloated themes. Transcript: Speaker 2 Need. But people would see my website can look this pretty. I like what that screenshot of that theme looks like and people would buy it. It's eye candy and I don't know if Drupal and Joomla, they don't have anything like that. Speaker 1 Certainly not on the same scale. There are theming engines in there. But no, and it became very commercial, didn't it as well. You were able to purchase themes for really quite extraordinarily cheap prices. And again, sometimes I think a blessing and a curse because I tried all of these things. Guilty as charged. Tried downloading themes and then realized that I had to take out more than I'd see something and think, oh, that's exactly what I want. I would download the theme, use the theme and then figure out it was more work to remove the bits that I didn't need. But it still worked. And for me, it drew me into the WordPress ecosystem. Then I learned that's not for ([Time 0:16:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/43d2962e-d386-4302-b368-023bfea24e6d)) - **Custom Post Types Transform WordPress** - Custom post types, introduced around version 2.9 to 3.0, were a game changer. - They allowed WordPress to move beyond blogging to a true content management system with flexible content types. Transcript: Speaker 2 Documented and it came out in 3.0 were the custom post types. And the custom post types were a game changer for me because before let's take press releases, a client wants to have their press releases separate from their blog. The only way you could do that before was to create a category in your blog and make it not show up with the blog but show up over here. And you feel like you're just trying to hack something together to make it fit. And then when custom post types came out, it was amazing to me because it allowed us where, yeah, we can do that. You know, a client say, I need to have this type of content show like we can do that. It wasn't trying to rig something that was impossible anymore. And we use custom post types almost every site that we build. It's just a it's a no brainer. They say we need a way to do X and we're like, okay, custom post type. We use that more than anything else probably. Speaker 1 It's interesting because we were talking earlier about things like Joomla and ([Time 0:18:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/580ef822-3274-4d7b-a90e-682afa11db74)) - **Pages Surpass Blogging in Use** - WordPress began as a blogging platform with only posts; pages were added later to support static content. - Today, most marketing sites use pages, with few clients actively blogging, reversing WordPress's original use case. Transcript: Speaker 1 Me as so bizarre that you couldn't create pages at the beginning. Oh, right. Right. I mean, it was a blog role. It was a blogging platform. So everything was a post. But tell us about that. Because that also is a fairly significant thing. You can create pieces of static content, which are not in some sort of hierarchy with other pieces of content. And that, again, crucial, important step. Speaker 2 Yeah. And to be honest, I'm kind of going the back of my head. I probably maybe 15% of the websites that we build use the blog. That's probably a high number for us. Most of our clients don't want a blog. They don't see the value. And sometimes I think you probably should have a blog and try to push them. It's a way to create content. If it's a marketing site and their goal is to someone to push the button, fill out this form. And that's the call to action. You don't need a blog. But what would you do without pages? So that really, that kind of predates me. I always had pages with 1.5. I used it. All I had for my blog was I had one page that was a contact page. I mean, that's it. But I needed that I couldn't have a blog post about my contact information because it'll get lost in the shuffle. Speaker 1 It's kind of interesting that, well, I've read a post recently. I can't remember where if I can summon up where it was, I will add it into the show notes. But I read a piece recently, which describes what you've just been talking about, this 15% or less. The person writing the post essentially said, can we make it so that the blog, the posts are an option. So it's toggleable. So you download WordPress and you enable or disable all of the blogging functionality. So the posts menu disappears and actually would clean up a lot of the interface. And in the sites that you're describing building where it's page, page, page, page, custom post site, whatever, that might be quite a neat feature. But it's curious that it is totally the opposite of how the thing began. It began that way. And yet it was morphed. My use is the same as your use. It's all about the pages. And quite often clients will say, I will create a blog. Speaker 2 And, you know, it never gets beyond the first post. The right one or two, and then it just, it disappears. And I try to always try to tell them, if you're going to start this, you can't stop. It just makes you look bad when you, your most recent blog post was five years ago, at least go in and change the date. Do something. It is interesting that we don't have much of a use case for blogs. And I don't think I host a single what I also do hosting. I host probably about 300 websites. And I don't think any of them are just a blog. All of them are WordPress installs. That's page focus that maybe, maybe has a blog. So it is interesting how it completely shifted. And that's probably true for the majority. Yeah, ([Time 0:20:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8708fa39-f0fe-41a6-9036-04341fb1044f)) - **Engage with WordPress Community** - The WordPress community is highly welcoming and helpful, fostering collaboration and support at events like WordCamps. - Engaging with the community offers valuable learning and lifelong friendships. Transcript: Speaker 2 I started using WordPress in 08 and I went to my first Word Camp. I don't know if it was 2012 or 13. I think it was 12 in Nashville. And that is where I just fell in love with the community because nowhere else in the world have I been able to just ask people, the people are just so willing to help. So if you're a newbie or you need someone, you're trying to figure out how do you fix this plugin or add this functionality and you're out of Word Camp, people are going to jump in and just Start, oh, maybe you should do this. I mean, people are extremely helpful. That's where I started falling in love with WordPress as far as the community. And since then I've spoken at 20 plus or camps, mostly in the Southeast US. It's something that I don't think is replicated anywhere else. For a little while I was in the Rails, Ruby on Rails world, they don't have a community like that. The PHP community in Atlanta at least is it's good, but it's still not an in Atlanta pre-COVID. We had 14 active meetups in the Atlanta area. It was extremely popular and in our Word Camp that we used to have every year, we would have 650 people there. And the only reason why it was 650 limited at 650 is because the venue that we use, that's all we could do. The community, at least in Atlanta, it's been incredible. I've made friends there. ([Time 0:31:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a759f148-9ac2-43a2-8a37-7a33bf7c7641)) - **WordPress Growth Likely Plateaued** - WordPress usage has grown steadily to around 43% of the web but may have plateaued. - A natural limit exists as some users avoid PHP or have other preferences, capping further growth. Transcript: Speaker 1 So over the last 20 years, WordPress, if you look at the graph, so on the one hand, we've got the years running and then on the other, we've got the usage data. The line just keeps going off. 2011 is higher than 2010, 2013 is higher than 2012. We keep talking about this figure of roughly 40 something, 43, 42, it hovers around there, percent of the web. So it's seemingly experienced more or less on stopable growth. What do we think about the next 20 years? Do you think there's a plateau at which one platform like WordPress can reach? And then we just have to meter our expectations and say, well, that's as far as one can expect it to go. Or are we after, I don't know, 86% double. Speaker 2 Has it not plateaued? I feel like it has plateaued. And I can't tell you why. I don't know why it's plateaued. I can just give you general ideas. There's still some people that will never use WordPress. They'll say, oh, I see it in the news. It's hacked all the time. And it's like, it's not hacked. It's WordPress core is secure. It's hosting issues, not updating things or a plugin that's not updated. But there's always going to be you're going to get the stigma from certain groups of people that are never going to want to use that. And then there's people that are going to want to use different. They don't want to use PHP. If they're going to build, they're not going to until WordPress is no longer PHP based. You know, I think it's not going to be able to surpass that because of the fact that there are other technologies out there that aren't compatible with that stack. Speaker 1 I guess it's impossible for something to keep growing exponentially because at some point there's just a natural limit. There's other people who will be interested in other things. It's amazing that it got even if it did stay where it is or possibly decline, it's pretty remarkable that it got where it did in 20 years. ([Time 0:34:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c5f1884-74e5-475d-8b04-480fcc2c6c00)) - **Legacy Sites Ensure Future Work** - Aaron envisions maintaining WordPress sites as a viable career for decades due to its massive existing user base. - He compares it to ColdFusion, which still lingers despite its age. Transcript: Speaker 2 Linger for years on end. I'll be able to make a little money off of maintaining WordPress sites 20 years from now, which is pretty cool. And I think about like cold fusion. I know cold fusion. I think they got an update a couple of years ago or maybe a year ago or something like that. There's still cold fusion sites, which cold fusion to me died in 2007 or something like that. But it's still lingering. And I think if WordPress stopped today, we'd have a very similar thing where I could still make a living off of WordPress, which is a cool feeling, I guess. ([Time 0:36:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d8f56972-fdb5-46f2-80e5-8f56f0001235)) - **Page Builders Drive Adoption** - Page builders significantly boosted WordPress's recent growth by letting non-technical users easily create complex layouts. - This ease lowered barriers, making professional-quality sites accessible without developers. Transcript: Speaker 1 That page builders were a big part of that. And I do wonder, we were talking a moment ago about Gutenberg. And I wonder if in the future, I wonder what that dynamic will do if the page builders all get consumed or Gutenberg eats their lunch. I don't know what's going to happen there, but I thought that was a curious, curious thing to tease out of this, that the growth that we've had recently, probably in large part can be attributed To page builders and the ability to create pages and all of that relatively easily inside the UI. I don't really have any thoughts on how that will carry on. Speaker 2 I would definitely agree with you. I kind of went down the path of I first used visual composer probably like 2015 or so. I was like, that's a cool idea. It seemed buggy to me, but once I tried Beaver Builder, I was sold. And I think once people realize, for example, a couple of weeks ago, I built a website for my brother and he just needed something pretty simple. But I showed him using a page builder. I said, I built the header and footer and I said, here's how you put content in. And he built the other pages. He did change it, upload the images and stuff like that. He knows nothing about computers. So the page builders had definitely made it where you don't need a developer. I mean, obviously for something more complex, if you need some kind of functionality to talk to some third party API, yeah, you're going to need a developer. ([Time 0:37:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b7129a9e-a970-4acf-9f74-a411e141c664)) - **AI Will Enhance Developers** - AI's future impact on WordPress is uncertain but promises to enhance developers' capabilities. - Developers may become more powerful and faster with AI assistance, transforming workflows. Transcript: Speaker 2 Beyond easy. Speaker 1 I do wonder in the future, it seems like every podcast that I record at the minute ends up at this question, what AI will do to WordPress? And I know that we didn't discuss this in our show notes, but it's interesting. Page builders made it fairly straightforward for non-technical people to what you see is what you get. And it truly did that. It literally almost pixel for pixel. It was exactly what you were looking at before you click publish. And I wonder what's going to happen to WordPress with AI and whether or not the job in the future will be entirely different for people like you, whether it will be more talking to an interface And telling it no move left, make that red, get me a picture of a cat over there. Speaker 2 I don't know, man. I watched Terminator 2 when I was 15 and I'm not interested. And I think people are going to be using it to write their term papers and, you know, all that. It's interesting. I think, I don't know, have me back in five years, we'll figure out, was this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not using chat GPT much. I've tinkered with it, but I can't. I haven't put it into my day to day yet. I'm talking to a developer friend of mine. He is at his company. They are making them learn how to use it because it's going to not replace them, but it's going to make them more powerful and make them quicker and be able to build things faster. And I think that's where we get to look forward to, you know, until the robots take over. ([Time 0:38:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bea54333-4644-48f0-83db-6cef0d4979ae)) - **Stable Core Enables Custom Builds** - Aaron prefers WordPress to provide a stable core with basic features, letting developers build custom functionality. - He values WordPress as a dependable platform over adding too many features into core. Transcript: Speaker 1 Slot that in in year five or seven? Honestly, you can make anything you like up here. It would really interesting just to get your insight. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't because of the fact that I've always been a, I shouldn't say always because I don't write code anymore, but I, you know, I had 15 years of writing code and I now have people That write code for me at my company and anything that WordPress couldn't do, we just built it. So I needed WordPress to be stable and be a core where it gives us a log in, something that gives us pages and posts, just the real basics and everything else we can build, which is pretty Awesome. I love it. Speaker 1 That's a perfect place to end it, I think. Aaron, if there's a ([Time 0:40:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f95ded95-4f62-4de5-b120-1ac8e82588e4))