Hedging Bets  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Hedging Bets - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a392d9c1-7cd1-4564-8bab-758738e1782d ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Measuring Impact Needs Time** - The real-world impact of WordPress ecosystem turmoil is hard to quantify but clearly present. - Impact measurement needs time; people might misinterpret outcomes with hindsight bias in 12 months. Transcript: Luke A moment today, I was talking with one of our guild members, and just asked how they were feeling about things broadly. And we had a discussion. And one of the questions that they were asking was, what are we noticing? What's been the real world impact? Because for them, business is actually quite good. Things are going well. They have some concerns. There have been some practical ramifications, but what's the real, what are the real concerns? Or what are we seeing? And I sat there and thought about it for some time. And on the one hand, as we've covered here on the podcast, we're seeing some like real world stuff and, and people are being affected. There's no questioning that. And as I sat with it for a bit, I'm like, I wonder how much effect if I had to put a number on it, how much of the ecosystem is being affected. And I'll just say negative. I don't think it's actually all negative despite Matt's actions, even our last episode. I think there's a lot of positive that can come out of this despite but setting that aside i began to ask myself like how much is really impacted by all this like if we had to put it to a number Like imagine these are ripples right like like things are being stirred up toys are being broken, and ripples are happening. Like what's the actual impact of that? And I was surprised at what I came up with. Well, okay. Jonathan Let me just like guess at where you're going because these sorts of questions I'm seeing, they're leading indicators, right? Yes. One question that comes up is, what will happen to my existing sites? I saw it on Slack today. If WordPress falls over, other than not getting plugin updates and WordPress updates, what's going to happen to my existing sites? And the answer, of course, is nothing at all. But I guess what I'm saying is, a leading indicator. What's, what's the real effect? Well, I don't think it can be measured right now. I think you measure it 12 months from now and you look at the growth or decline of market share. Luke And, and keep in mind that people are often wrong about what's actually happening because if it's going well, 12 months from now, uh, people might say like, Oh, Matt was right in all that He did. Right. And if it goes poorly they might point to oh it's matt's fault or vice there's any number of things like even at the end of that uh jk press post it was quite the setup right where matt's like Oh let's see how it goes in a year obviously their intentions weren't to fork it. But a lot is told as time goes on. Now, what we say about how we got there is often, even if we're not meaning to mislead, is often inaccurate. ([Time 0:02:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/31d64595-fef1-48fe-a28f-4fa1d6a73318)) - **Multiple Areas Show WordPress Impact** - Different categories of new WordPress site builds are impacted at varying degrees. - Contribution levels have dropped over 90% considering demotivation and departure of contributors. Transcript: Luke How did you how did you measure it uh it's um very unscientific a gut sense based on the anecdotes and just like thinking and asking myself bigger questions. So it's not qualified. I understand. Jonathan So you're asking me, what's my gut sense? Yeah. I have no idea. My gut sense is that there are multiple areas affected. One is new site builds, and I would put that into two categories. One is small business site builds, or let's say three categories. One is individual personal site builds, one's small business, and one's big enterprise business. And I'd put the enterprise business side of things at over 50% impact on new site builds. Small business impact, probably 20 to 30 and personal site builds, maybe similar. Then there's also the contributor effect. How has this affected contributions? And if you include automatics change in their contribution levels, that's in the 90 plus percent, right? If you take out all of the contributors that have just left the project, if you take into account all of the contributors that haven't actively left, but are just demotivated and take Into account the reduction in hours from Automattic, there has been a bit of an uptick in other companies saying, you know what, maybe we should come to the table a bit more. You know, I know 10Up is doing some work in that area and others, but yeah, you know, in the contribution space, there's a lot less than there used to be. ([Time 0:06:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3dab2e61-3d81-44b9-ac1e-aa06531226e6)) - **Enterprise Impact and Slow Decision-Making** - Luke estimates a maximum of 5% negative impact on the WordPress ecosystem, especially in enterprise. - Enterprise decision makers are slow but often rejecting WordPress now, affecting adoption. Transcript: Luke I like that you call out the different categories. So what I concluded earlier today, as I was just sitting there in the moment and processing it, was that it's a maximum of 5%. And I'll just take your enterprise example as I think a good illustration of the point. 50% is a lot higher than is practical for enterprise, if for no other reason than because of how slow they move now we have the disadvantage of having i would argue more access than most Of the anecdotes so you're probably hearing the stories more than most would like there have been enterprise losses for certain right that that would be part of what i'd expect you to Use to inform that number but my sense and i can't i can't prove this right but my sense and the way that i think about this is like we get much smaller sample sizes than the reality in the Jonathan Case of enterprise in particular they are slow to move for better or for worse yeah i i think they're slow to move in different ways maybe they're slow to move in terms of signing a contract But enterprise sales have always been about the one key decision maker, right? You've got to get that chief digital officer, CTO person that's making the decision on board. And typically with enterprise sales in WordPress, they need to be on board with WordPress. And it is anecdotal. You're right. I am working off anecdata, if you will. But I like that. The anecdotal evidence that I've come across is that these people in key decision making positions are just saying, no, we're just not doing WordPress. Yes, it's still going to be slow, the whole sales process, right? Getting any enterprise business to sign off on a scope and start a project is painful, and I'm glad I'm not doing it. But in terms of getting them to sign off on just WordPress, it's just a no-go in so many situations. And that's not something that is affected by the slow moving nature of enterprise. Luke Let me be clear, like 5% is still like in my mind, even with that, like is quite problematic. Like that's a big deal. Anytime something that if either one, whoever's, whatever is the reality and not that we could know, like 5%, if I was right about that is still significant. ([Time 0:08:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f0624539-83e7-4da7-844a-0588b3226a8b)) - **Next Year Will Reveal Ecosystem Direction** - What happens in the next year, including upcoming releases, will be a stronger indicator of ecosystem direction. - Planned WordPress 6.8 release focuses on polish and improving stability amid current challenges. Transcript: Luke And from my point of view, what's going to happen, what's going to matter most is what happens next. Yes, there's the court case aspect of this. And there's Matt and his leadership and automatics involvement like that is a significant plays an important role. But from my point of view, what actually is going to be a bigger indicator is what happens this year. There are three releases scheduled one of our colleagues, Tammy Lister is serving as design lead. Folks are stepping up and it's going to be an interesting opportunity to see how this goes over this next period of time. So that to me is going to be the better indicator of how this trends. And if I'm imagining for a moment how hosting companies are feeling about this, they want stability. They want some certainty about things. And from what I've read so far of the 6.8 release, the plan is kind of an anticlimactic polish and just keep things running and clean things up and use it as an opportunity to just improve What's there, which I think will be great for the project, regardless of everything else going on. ([Time 0:10:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/42fe8af8-070f-4655-ada8-f802db19bd6d)) - **Use Data to Gauge Impact** - Gathering sales data from hosting providers and plugin companies can help quantify current WordPress ecosystem impact. - Collecting multiple data points from different sources improves clarity on the actual ecosystem state. Transcript: Jonathan Put a number on it, one thing that we could do is we could look at, in the court case, WP Engine have specified how much their new website builds have been, new signups have been affected. I don't know off the top of my head what that number is, but we could use that as a top end because there will be some people who are like, you know what, WP Engine, I'm not going to use them Because Matt doesn't like them. And so that's going to be, I'll use somebody else for WordPress. That's going to be a certain percentage. But there's also going to be a large percentage that is like, actually, we just don't want to use WordPress at all. So we could compare actually, if you have any contacts in the hosting, which I know you do, if you could figure out even off the record, how much sales have been down, it could also be plugin ([Time 0:11:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/88f2bf4e-c3e0-4ca9-b2dc-d378248c212f)) - **Luke's CloudFest Experience** - Luke attended CloudFest Europa Park two years ago and looks forward to attending it in the U.S. this year. - The event serves as a neutral platform for the broader ecosystem beyond WordPress, with ongoing hackathons. Transcript: Luke That's where i was it's always in that was the joke yeah yes well it's coming to the U.S. This year as well. Oh, right, right, right. It usually is in the U.S. Jonathan Too, right? There's usually CloudFest U.S., but that's the baby one. That's the unimportant one that nobody. Oh, wow. Okay. Luke I mean, nobody really wants to travel to the United States. Okay, Luke. All right. All right. Enough of that. So I'm quite excited. We have the WP Zone coming to CloudFest this year. And anecdotally, again, we're seeing a lot of interest. And one of the things that's making CloudFest interesting from what we're hearing, obviously the CloudFest team and ourselves have been consistently supportive of the project and The ecosystem. The hackathon has been going on for years. There's a lot of great alignment of interest there. And one of the things that they've been focused on in particular is how do we create an agnostic and neutral space for the broader ecosystem, which is not just WordPress. And that's part of what I've loved about it so far. So that's in a couple of months. I think I'm excited to see how that goes. Yeah. Jonathan That'll, that'll be really interesting. Luke It's going to be an indicator of some, yeah. Jonathan I am really interested to see who attends from the project. So of course, you know, we expect to see hosting companies and people involved in that space. But last time I went, I had some really good catch-ups with Drosefa. And I wonder whether I'll have the same opportunities with Mary Hubbard this year. ([Time 0:13:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2413860a-eb84-43ec-bca7-774b5bfd8fbb))