Perspectives With Sam Sidler  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Perspectives With Sam Sidler - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b5b84d6f-0758-4572-9788-c99085ecd95a ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Sam's Camino Open Source Start** - Sam Sidler got started in open source by contributing to the Camino browser project. - He still maintains CaminoBrowser.org to keep the project's legacy alive. Transcript: Sam Sidler Well, thank you for having me. Camino is actually one of the first ways I got started in open source. I was contributing prior to that to some other very small projects, but Camino is one of those moments where there was a web browser that I loved. I was very into Macs. I'm still into Macs. I have all of the Apple devices that I can surrounding me right now. And it was a great browser and I loved it. And it looked like it could use some help. It looked like it could use some support and some contributions. And I kind of understood the open source concept at the time, having contributed a little bit, but dove in headfirst, ended up getting me hired to Mozilla, but to work on Firefox, not On Camino. Camino is always an all-volunteer thing. And fun fact, CaminoBrowser.org, which is the homepage of the Camino browser, is still online, and that's something that I still manage, just because websites should not die for no Other reason than I want it to continue to exist. ([Time 0:03:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/90943306-bfcb-45cc-8178-51795be2f926)) - **Chromium’s Browser Monopoly** - The web browser industry is innovating but dominated by Chromium-based browsers, creating homogeneity. - Sam seeks browsers outside Chromium to break Google's monopoly and promote diversity. Transcript: Sam Sidler It's hard times. It's weird times, maybe is a better way to say it. So I currently have probably seven browsers installed on my Mac. I should disclose I'm on my Mac right now, but I have actually been, since the developer beta came out, been primarily working and living within my iPad, have not been touching my Mac For the past. Oh, that's interesting. This is the first day that I've opened my Mac in about three weeks. But we don't have to go down that route right now. But I have been installing every single new web browser that seems to come out. I think that there's a lot of very compelling innovation that's happening within the web browser industry right now. One of the cool ones that I was trying not too long ago was Orion, which is from the Kagi search engine. I think I'm pronouncing that right. Zen is another one that's built on top of the Firefox code base. It's also quite interesting. Many of these, those, and of course DuckDuckGo has their own DuckDuckGo browser that I quite like as well. It's very simple and streamlined. But many of these are kind of, many of these end up having the same problem, which is that they're built on Chromium. And so what I've been looking for is a browser that is not built on Chromium. One that is not, not because there's anything wrong with what Google is doing with Chrome and Chromium, although arguably there are some things that are not ideal for that industry. But more because I think it's more compelling and more interesting to see how we can get outside of this Chrome monopoly, frankly. Yeah, the homogeny that exists today. And we'll see what the U.S. Demands of that. I know they want to have Google divest from the Chrome browser. I have no idea what that would look like, how that would function, if that would destroy the industry or reignite it or something. I use Safari. Safari is good. Maybe. ([Time 0:05:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/744a93d9-df2e-4bc6-8bd7-706bec9c3f04)) - **Focus on WordPress "Delta"** - WordPress ecosystem analysis often overlooks the 'delta'—the history between past and present events. - Focusing on immediate news misses recurring patterns in governance and community challenges. Transcript: Sam Sidler One of the things I've noticed within sort of the WordPress community within how reporting within WordPress and analysis happens is that it's very focused on exactly what's happening. And there's not a lot of going back and looking retroactively and trying to dig into some of why things happen, some of the details, and what I like to think of as the in-between or the delta Between how we got from where we were to where we are. That's where the name comes from. Whether it's good or not, I'll leave to an exercise of the listener today. But that's one of the things I wanted to try to start digging into is to understand, yes, there are problems within the WordPress community. Many people have documented these problems. There's governance issues. There's contribution issues from some companies versus others. There's community incidents that happen. There's a million things. It's a huge ecosystem. There's going to be problems no matter what. But we seem constantly focused on what's driving the news, what's kind of in our news cycle today. ([Time 0:08:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8904b477-2a24-4bdf-aed6-d73f8981ed4c)) - **Current WordPress Crisis is Different** - WordPress issues now are more intense than before but follow similar historical patterns. - Past incidents were seeds of current community fractures and reflect ongoing governance challenges. Transcript: Jonathan Me push back on that sam because this is this is a talking point of matt mullenweg too oh this is this isn't the first time there's been a problem in the wordpress community it's happened Three or four times before. When? I mean, when has it been such a, I mean, maybe I'm just forgetting, tell me, but I can't remember any time in WordPress when there's been so much community pushback, when there's been A huge list of a hundred things that the community wants handed down to the leader of the project when there's been these big calls for change in leadership even gutenberg wasn't like This gutenberg was very different it was a small group of people who wanted to stick and to the classic editor it it you know it blew over really quickly. This seems fundamentally different to me. Am I wrong? Sam Sidler I don't think you're wrong. I do think this is fundamentally different. I just think that we've seen the seeds of this in many different incidents over the past 20 years, right? Some very small and some that I feel were chalked up to an experience of, you know, and I don't mean this in a bad way at all, like an experience of an executive. Right. When I was in my early 20s, I made a lot of mistakes. Right. Yeah. And there was a lot of mistakes made in the early days of the WordPress ecosystem. But as we've grown, we've seen this pattern sort of repeated where mistakes keep getting made that are very clearly bad for everyone, bad for the community, bad for the ecosystem, bad For even the leadership, ultimately, because they so distrust, right? And I don't think you're wrong. I 100% agree that this is sort of the worst it's gotten, but it is a cycle, right? It's just that the circle's getting a little bit bigger, if you will. Jonathan So like you're talking about the Envato thing where Envato got banned from word camps and still is. And there wasn't there some controversy with Thesis back in the day? Luke Chris Pearson. Jonathan All of that sort of thing. And these are just like stepping stones or the seeds is a good way of putting it. ([Time 0:09:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9517aee4-ece6-4cb6-813d-bf0b48d4245e)) - **Governance Challenges of BDFL Model** - The benevolent dictator model may no longer suit WordPress’s vast ecosystem and community. - Governance challenges arise when one individual's vision can clash with the broader ecosystem's needs. Transcript: Luke As like, if you take the last 20 years, like how would you articulate from your perspective, like what's the core issue at stake? Sam Sidler That's, that's a hard one to answer. I, I think that ultimately it comes down to a governance issue and a governance question and ultimately it comes down to is the model of a benevolent dictator sustainable for an ecosystem As large as wordpress yeah certainly it is sustainable for very small projects open source projects certainly is it is sustainable for some moderately large WordPress projects, Or excuse me, open source projects. Is it sustainable for something as large as WordPress? And I know there are other examples. As large? Jonathan Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's what you're thinking of already. Sam Sidler That's the biggest example everyone uses, but you have to look at Linux a little bit differently, right? Linux is, at its core, a kernel, right? And what Linux has been built upon, like, it's that plugin ecosystem, right? It's not. Obviously, we have WordPress plugins. The kernel is something quite different. But it's how you build upon it that has mattered quite a bit for Linux. And how you build on WordPress matters, but the core software matters too. Linux also doesn't have what I would call the same kind of community, right? So, and again, when I say Linux, I mean the software project in particular. Obviously, the Linux Foundation has multiple hundreds of communities, really, all working together. But when you look at the software itself, there isn't a large ecosystem in the same way that there is within the WordPress community ecosystem. Luke One of the things that I would argue that's problematic, no pun intended yet, with the benevolent dictator model is that it doesn't even matter how well intended that the dictator may Be there's all these on there's all these unintended consequences of like you wake up one day and say hey i'm going to be helpful and and you go in and like show up somewhere and ask questions And it has all these unintended consequences that the person by nature of their position can end up just being blind to uh matter how good their intentions are, which is what I would argue Is the challenge at this scale. Like there's just so much that a human, an individual cannot keep on top of. And if you add to that, I would argue my suspicion that Matt is in a bit of a, we're all in bubbles of various sorts, but I would argue that Matt is in a bubble in particular where there's fewer People that are going to outright disagree on something. It's going to be because there's risks and fears and ramifications to that, which means that you're in a more and more vulnerable position over time, counterintuitively for all the Power you think you have to end up just making poor decisions in context of a large ecosystem. That's always been the heart of my concern is that Matt's views, at least historically, from my bias perspective, haven't been ecosystem-wide in thinking through the ramifications. ([Time 0:13:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5e9fa65b-2e79-45c6-ac86-5c54804e66d4)) - **Power Dynamics in WordPress Governance** - WordPress governance centers on power and control, with little incentive for Matt Mullenweg to change. - There is evidence Matt could respond to criticism but remains a significant dependency for the ecosystem. Transcript: Luke Investigate them. So what's bugging me here as I think about this is at the heart of the issue from my perspective is it's one about power and control. And at least as I read the situation, at least at a high level, there's just not a lot of incentive for Matt to really affect any changes. And that may be a bit unfair, but at least no pun intended. And giving Matt the benefit of the doubt, when there is a clear articulation of a set of problems, there is a pattern of being able to respond and adjust and demonstrate growth and get Out of a bubble. ([Time 0:19:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4429c953-96fa-43a2-bfcb-e81a7df3fa94)) - **Five for the Future’s Incentive Problems** - Five for the Future lacks clear incentives for companies to contribute effectively to WordPress. - Companies struggle to impact major decisions, leading to frustrated and failed contribution efforts. Transcript: Luke Of mixed messages. Sam Sidler And there's a lot of mixed messages, right? And so if there was a way for, you know, and I'll pick on WP Engine because they're in this war now with Matt, right? If there was a way for them to have that large of an impact within the direction of WordPress core, Gutenberg, the community, events, all of these different pieces, don't you think they Would jump at that chance? Right. I feel like they would, but they've over the years, and this is true of every major company to some extent, right? With the exception of Automatic, they've been hampered, right? They haven't been allowed fully into that sort of open source. Luke But well, hold up. So one of the things that you called out, Sam, the five for the future piece is at the end of the day in the in the what became public about the licensing negotiations between Automatic And WP Engine is that they were asked to do eight percent. But the gotcha line there was at the direction of WordPress.org, which is effectively at Matt's direction, who is a competitor. And it was like, hey, so to your point, Sam, as I look at WP Engine's arc and narrative, at least at a high level, it's like you would expect that they would see a clear incentive to be more Involved and have a bigger influence and impact on the project. And yet there's a conflict of interest there of multiple levels. Jonathan I completely agree. Five for the Future is broken and has been from its inception. But we have examples of companies deciding to commit great resources to WordPress that aren't automatic. The first one that comes to mind for me is Yoast. And I think it can be done that there really is nothing stopping WP Engine. And let's say was. There was nothing stopping WP Engine from just saying, you know what? I'm just going to spin up a division of 100 folks. And that'll include some management layers. And then we're interested in the hosting side. So we're going to dedicate this team. They're going to work on hosting. And we also interested in performance. So we're going to contribute to the performance team like Google does, right? That's another great example. I mean, obviously Google is not 5%, not 0.05%, but you know what I mean? Like it's like, this is something that's, they could have done that and they could have been having an impact. There wasn't anything stopping them from doing that, except that their WP Engine is just a big, slow moving, lumbering corporation of a company. And they can't do anything with any sort of alacrity. And so that was never going to happen. Sam Sidler So I disagree, right? So we've seen Yoast, Yoast is a great example, contribute lots to the WordPress ecosystem in many different teams, not only to core itself, right? And we mean the company, not the person, including the person. We mean the company, not the person, but including the person, yes, as at one point head of marketing, I forget his title for WordPress, however short lived that was. We've seen that happen, yes. But I can point to a dozen other companies that have tried, that have hired engineers, dedicated them to WordPress, to WordPress core, and then had them sit around and twiddle their Thumbs because they don't know where to get involved. No one is guiding them. And when they do start writing code, it's rejected because it's not part of Matt's roadmap. It's not the four things, the four phases of Gutenberg at the time, right? And this is a repeated cycle. And even when they are contributing to those areas, because of that closed ecosystem that's been creative, that feedback loop within automatic, they can't really get a foot in the Door. And this has been a perpetual problem, right? So it's, again, chicken and egg potentially scenario here, but it's really hard to incentivize companies. And WP Engine did have contributors many years ago now, right? I was one of them. To WordPress itself. There you go, right? And that ultimately was a kind of experiment that failed, right? They did not see the investment being worth it. And so, yes, there is an altruism that would be great. I wish every company wanted to donate their time and money and resources to open source. ([Time 0:25:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aed6499c-0b70-4828-8859-e65921b68167)) - **Contributing to WordPress Core** - Many companies have tried dedicating engineers to WordPress core, but they often struggle due to a lack of guidance. - Their code contributions get rejected if they don't align with Matt Mullenweg's roadmap. - The closed ecosystem and feedback loop within Automattic also makes it difficult for external contributors to gain traction. - This creates a recurring problem for those trying to contribute to WordPress core. Transcript: Sam Sidler We've seen that happen, yes. But I can point to a dozen other companies that have tried, that have hired engineers, dedicated them to WordPress, to WordPress core, and then had them sit around and twiddle their Thumbs because they don't know where to get involved. No one is guiding them. And when they do start writing code, it's rejected because it's not part of Matt's roadmap. It's not the four things, the four phases of Gutenberg at the time, right? And this is a repeated cycle. And even when they are contributing to those areas, because of ([Time 0:29:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fb0329f8-7238-4828-b999-619c62d8eaed)) - Tags: starred - **Matt’s Incentives and Controversy** - Matt Mullenweg's incentives include protecting his legacy and WordPress as his life's work. - Despite good intentions, his approach to conflict and lawsuits has harmed the community. Transcript: Sam Sidler Do want to circle back because I think we started on the incentive conversation really talking about the incentive for Matt in particular and we kind of diverted over to the to everyone Contributing to WordPress I do think Matt does have incentive to be benevolent and we kind of look past this and brush past this all the time in talking about him and kind of separating Him from the man, from the myth, if you will, right? But if you go back to his statements, if you really look at, you know, his public statements for why he started this war, and you take him at his word, WordPress is his life's work. Yes, it's his legacy. And this is his legacy. And if it all comes crashing down, comes crumbling down, that is, that's him. That's everything right there. Luke And Sam, to that point, I remember when Matt and I, Luke and I rather have talked about this a bunch. When Matt first started writing about this, it was easy, at least for me, to feel a resonance and a sympathy with the heart of the message that I was hearing. And the disconnect was my sense of the disconnect from like, okay, well, that makes sense, but we would have been with you on this. But the way that Matt went about it made it suddenly Luke and I, who were no big friends of WP Engine, were in the position of feeling like, yeah, they're being treated unfairly here. There's some great people at WP Engine that are being thrown under the bus. There's all this stuff that's going on. And it's like if Matt had just approached it in a different way, it would have been a lot easier to have resonated with at least an understanding of that core message. Jonathan Do you think it's possible that Matt is just, or do you think it's possible even for a person to become too passionate about something, too involved, too much identity attached to a project That all of a sudden you, I don't know, you start making these big, big rash decisions and are far less able to listen to other people's ideas and opinions? Sam Sidler I think it's hard to know what's in his head right now or what was in his head, at least in September, to kind of trigger all of this. And he can go back and say that this started previously and perhaps some of these, you know, some of this communication, some of these problems did start prior to that. But that is when things went public and really got dramatic in what I would consider a bad way. And, you know, Jonathan, I agree with you. Like, there are so many things that Matt was saying and continues to say that I agree with. Like, I want a solid community and ecosystem with companies across the world contributing, not 5%, certainly a significant portion of their time and effort to helping WordPress in Some way. I think that's a great thing for the future of WordPress itself and the future of our ecosystem. I don't think this was the right way to do it, right? And I don't think the actions he took that resulted in this lawsuit were appropriate, quite frankly. That's my personal opinion. That's not how I would have approached it. ([Time 0:34:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f684bef1-ed73-48ac-9347-b29c3d21e437)) - **Legal Conflict Threatens WordPress Ecosystem** - The ongoing lawsuit creates legal uncertainty causing some enterprise customers to leave WordPress. - The conflict threatens WordPress’s reputation and ecosystem stability in the corporate world. Transcript: Sam Sidler Yeah. I mean, I, first off as to where we go, have you considered ghost? Cause it's, it's pretty good just for the record for blogging and newsletters and stuff. Maybe not for, maybe not for everything, but I quite like it. I do think that what has happened is a transformational shift for WordPress, and it is bad. I, you know, I've heard from clients, I've heard from corporate customers and clients, and they are looking at moving off of WordPress. Anything that's been done has caused a security issue or flagged problems for them. But because this uncertainty, this legal uncertainty, it just makes them uncomfortable, right? These are large Fortune 500 companies that don't want to deal with a company or an entity or a person whose website is just out there and they're giving their information to them. And it all starts to get a little confusing and incoherent, quite frankly. And they have large procurement teams, risk management teams that are saying, uh-uh, this is not safe anymore. This is not a known quantity anymore. And you have, of course, WordPress VIP that room saying it's safe. Automatics got your back. And their question back is, what about this WordPress.org thing that is not automatic that is not owned by a nonprofit or an entity of any kind is just individuals? What about that? And that causes problems. And once you start to lose some of those corporate customers, you start to lose some of your ecosystem. Luke And especially when the message to a number of those corporate customers was like, oh, you just made a bad choice with WP Engine. Come on over to VIP. We'll take care of you. That's a disruptive move. There was a whole process you went through. And to suddenly have that communication, you just just come over to VIP. It's like, wait a minute, what's going on here? These are big moves. These take years. Yeah. Sam Sidler And I mean, to the case itself, I have no idea how that case will turn out, right? I have some intuition just because if you look at preliminary injunctions, they are not normally granted. There's a high bar there. So there is some indication that at least WP Engine will win on some of their claims. Will they win on all of them? I don't know. How many, how much would it cost automatic or Matt personally? I have no idea, right? Will it settle before it even goes to court? I doubt it, but it's possible, right? And the reason why I doubt it and you know i am not a lawyer i should probably preface everything with i am not a lawyer i'm not a developer i should say all of those things ahead of time um But just knowing that wp engine has lost so many customers as a result of this yeah even if they've gained more after to make up for that that loss is significant and that monetary damage Is significant. And I don't know how Automatic could afford just in a settlement to give them all of those customers, give them all that money. ([Time 0:41:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/af2393e1-9da3-43df-b943-b394d57c7f5c)) - **Software Progress Depends on Automatic** - The WordPress software itself will improve slowly despite community turmoil. - Automatic's interest in fixing software issues is key to future progress. Transcript: Sam Sidler Think the actual software itself will slowly improve just as it has done or iteratively improve just as it has done for the past decade, right? To your point, you know, I hear that message a lot, like the site editor is hard. Even the block editor, that was the message earlier, the block editor is hard. Those have kind of died down, but now it's the site editor that's the problem, right? I think that's really just adopting new technology is hard. And it's even harder for the people implementing that technology, for the agencies who have to go in and teach this to their clients and explain it to them. I'm quite fond of the site editor, quite honestly. Once you get the hang of it, it's quite nice. There are problems, to be very clear. There are all of these rough edges. Do those get fixed? Honestly, does Automatic care? That's ultimately the question. If Automatic, those get fixed. ([Time 0:45:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/535e888a-681a-4f7d-862b-3e4cc6c1df69)) - **WordPress Peak and Decline Warning** - WordPress may hit its peak in 2025, then decline due to dwindling contributors and users. - Event cancellations and shrinking community interest signal ecosystem challenges ahead. Transcript: Sam Sidler Happened? It's hard to predict, right? And I don't, I'm not also not a fortune teller. I guess I should have disclaimed that as well. Wait, what? Luke What? I thought that's, you were just going to tell us. Sam Sidler I'll do my best. I'll do my best. I think the core software itself will slow down, right? There are people who, developers, engineers, designers, just users who are moving to other platforms and will continue that move over time, whether they be at the enterprise level Or the individual level. And that shift is going to take place just naturally as a result of this. As a result, there'll be fewer contributors. There'll be fewer people using the software, trying it and building upon it. That slows down product development, quite frankly. Automatic can only drive so much if they keep their 5%. That's great. But they've also shrunk as a company by 25% in the past year. And that's much smaller from a contribution standpoint. How much smaller they get beyond that, who knows, really is going to depend on the outcome of that case probably. We'll have to wait and see. As far as market share goes, I think, and we'll see if I'm wrong, I think 2025 might be the peak of WordPress and that it'll be downhill from here. It's possible all of this changes, of course, and who can truly predict the future. But I do think that the impact that this is going to have is significant. And we can see it from a bunch of anecdotal evidence, you know, throughout all of our daily lives. But even look at WordCamp US, you mentioned it earlier, it's coming up. It's in August, I think. And ticket sales are down significantly, like 80% down or something. I'm sure they will pick up. There's always a bit of an increase near the end. But if WordCamp US is down, if the one WordCamp of the year that is supposed to be the most important WordCamp is down. What does that look like for the rest of the community? What does that look like for the smaller events? We're seeing a lot of events that are no longer WordCamps, that are spinning out and doing their own things in Minnesota and Arizona. I would offer, I'm ([Time 0:47:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d4611ed7-76be-4444-a4f5-163067c32ce6)) - **Community Over Software Growth** - WordPress grew because of its community and events, not just software innovation. - Prioritizing product over ecosystem health risks harming WordPress’s future vitality. Transcript: Sam Sidler I think Matt looked at the software and said the software is why WordPress has been growing. And I think that's wrong, right? I think it's always been the community and the ecosystem. It's the WordCamps, the meetups and the events that kind of started this feedback loop of growth that has really helped it. And yes, it started with engineers and it started with contributors and all of that. But over time, it's become this bigger, broader thing. And in starting this war, he's taken advantage of the ecosystem, right? He said, no, if you're not contributing code, it doesn't matter anymore. And that's, I think that's, that was the fatal flaw in all of this, more than anything else. Luke Yeah. And I think that matches with my own sense of Matt's focus has been on the product of WordPress. And I think some important moves, right? Like on the whole, the recognition that we need to innovate, the push into React and Gutenberg and like whatever you say about it, it's like you needed some of that energy. And I think that's part of what, at least in Matt's mind, might justify some of the moves that he's taken now. But that fixation, I'd argue, like on, to your point, the software, like the product of WordPress at the ignorance of the impact of those decisions on the ecosystem of WordPress. I would describe the ecosystem right now as still really diverse and still having a lot of overall resilience. It's going to take some time before it would die, but it is in an unhealthy state, I would argue at this point. ([Time 0:53:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/30862853-d0a0-4d28-9222-e47df7589fd4)) - **FAIR Project as Ecosystem Safeguard** - FAIR project aims to federate WordPress ecosystem control to avoid centralized single-person dominance. - It builds trust and redundancy for enterprise users, but major governance changes depend on Matt's willingness. Transcript: Sam Sidler Everybody gets one on every call. That's all you get is one. Well done. No, one of the things we've seen come out of this is an understanding that too much is kind of within Matt's grasps, right? And he can do whatever he wants with WordPress.org, right? He can, as you mentioned, Luke, he can publish messages using that platform to every single WordPress install in the world, right? And that is problematic, or maybe fewer now that WP Engine disabled that, but he can do that. And that is... Jonathan To be fair, a few people can do that, but yes, he does do that. Sam Sidler Sure, he does do that. But he can control, like, which people can do that as well, right? That's true. And ultimately, it is at his will, at his judgment, who gets to say what and when they get to say it, right? And some of the messaging, you know, even outside of WP Engine and this war, some of the messaging has sometimes been questionable. You know, why is this important to publish out to this broad audience of not engineers? Some of them are, but not most, right? Why is this important? And when I look at FAIR and when I look at, you know, what we were trying to do and what we continue to try to do, it's really about federating this overall ecosystem and saying there is not Going to be one sole point that can bring down or one sole person that can bring down the ecosystem anymore. It's about adding back that trust for enterprise customers, for end users, for hopefully everyone. Now, it's a long path to get there, right? And it doesn't solve every single problem within the WordPress ecosystem. That would be impossible, quite frankly. You know, again, as I mentioned earlier, ecosystems are going to have problems and there's no way around that. But it does knock down one of the bigger problems that was flagged out of all of this. So I see it as a solution to a problem, not as the solution to all of our problems. I think to get us to that point where there is change would require a change in Matt's mind on governments, quite frankly. And I don't know if that will ever happen, nor does it necessarily have to. ([Time 0:55:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3e828e70-fd2e-48a5-8c22-2e6cc0731fca)) - **FAIR’s Potential to Revitalize Ecosystem** - FAIR is early, focusing on engineering and risk mitigation but has potential to accelerate innovation faster than WordPress.org. - Including paid plugins in FAIR could energize the ecosystem with new commercial incentives. Transcript: Luke So to that point, I think if you can create some clear commercial incentives, if the project and the plug-in piece is a part of it, then that brings its own energy and health, if you will. I think that's an important part of this is incentives. Commercial is just one of them, but it is an important incentive for the businesses that are trying to invest in the space. For instance, the biggest problem that most products tend to have is distribution. How do you, so on the one hand, I can see this adding more nightmares to the world of product. If suddenly you have a bunch of like federated repositories and there's all sorts of new questions that come up about reviews and support and sort of all this stuff but if you can mitigate Those things in theory you can offer a future where entrepreneurs people creating products in the space have access to a wider market so that's something i'll be curious to see Yeah, Sam Sidler And a lot of, it's still very early days for FAIR, right? We don't have a website, right? We don't have any sort of marketing or any sort of direction of any kind from the visual standpoint. End users may have heard of it, but have no idea what to do with it. And I would doubt that most end users have heard of it, right? And that's okay, right? This is starting from an engineering standpoint. It's starting from let's ship some code, right? And that was one of the things you heard from Matt at WordCamp Europe and talking about it. At least they ship some code, right? At least they're showing, putting, this is what we're going to do. Whether he agrees with it or not is a different question. But we have to get out there and start shipping some code, doing the work. And over time, you'll see more growth within FAIR. ([Time 0:59:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bcd46815-bc57-48da-9d5e-77622477f945))