My two cents about WordPress  🔗 **Source:** [My two cents about WordPress](https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/2098785603793944993/?rw_tt_thread=True) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [wordpress, open-web, web-independence, open-source-funding, wordpress-governance] > author: Dave Winer > source: X (@davewiner); also Scripting News > reference: https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/2098785603793944993 > date created: 2026-09-12 > > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > <!-- deep-read: light-touch --> > Light-touch by design: a 420-word opinion essay, posted the same day on Scripting News and X. It's a values statement, not an argument with evidence, so this note records the position, checks its two factual claims, and adds the author's context from two days earlier. > > # 🏷️ Title: My two cents about WordPress > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 📝 Summary Dave Winer says the last two years of WordPress disputes distract from helping the web "get back on its feet." He contrasts an earlier web where "everything could hook into everything else" (like Unix) with today's "Disneyland" web. His advice: leave WordPress as it is, a 20-plus-year-old project with market problems, and start something new built "from the point of view of the web." Its success would be measured by how far the web becomes "Small Pieces Loosely Joined with All Parts Replaceable" and how empowered web developers are, not by return on investment. He argues the web can be cleaned up the way New York's rivers were, and asks people who made billions on the web to fund that work. ## 🗒️ Who said what **Dave Winer** (@davewiner; Scripting News): > [!quote] > Start something new, don't change what you do with WordPress, it is what it is. > [!quote] > The fresh start I'd like to see done is WordPress from the point of view of the web. > [!quote] > If you made billions on the web, why not put some of it to use in making it a web worth using. ## 🔗 Context - **Primary copy.** Scripting News published the essay on 2026-09-12 at http://scripting.com/2026/09/12/143822.html. The X text matches it except for "in the 90s," added after "Bill Gates." - **Two days earlier.** Winer's Scripting News post "Gobsmacked by Automattic, but then…" (2026-09-10) reacts to Automattic's board putting Matt Mullenweg on paid leave. He argues the CEO job is a poor fit for someone who sees himself as a developer and idea person, and mentions a chart of about 60 direct reports ("iirc"). He also writes that he wants a "WordPress Lite," that he has "implemented it," and links wordland.social. He adds that WordPress "should be a public resource as much as a profit machine for a few companies." - **Interest.** "Start something new" lines up with Winer's own WordPress-adjacent project, which the Sept 10 post links. This essay doesn't mention it. - **The phrase.** "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" is the title of David Weinberger's 2002 book on the web; the essay doesn't cite it. ## ✅ Claim checks - **"As they say it's 89 percent of the web."** Not supported. W3Techs (page dated 12 September 2026) reports WordPress on 58.8% of websites whose CMS it can identify, which is 40.3% of all websites. Winer's own Sept 10 post says "It doesn't matter what percentage of the web is WordPress, if it isn't going anywhere." - **Bill Gates "kept that promise"** to give away all his money. Premature. On 2025-05-08 the Gates Foundation announced Gates would give away virtually all his wealth over the next 20 years and close the foundation on December 31, 2045. The promise is in progress, not kept. ## ⚖️ What it does not establish - **A plan.** "WordPress from the point of view of the web" names a direction, not a product, owner, funding source, or first deliverable. - **Evidence from the analogies.** Unix, Disneyland, an oil spill, and 1970s New York illustrate the argument; they aren't evidence about WordPress or the web. - **"Market problems."** The essay doesn't say which. - **Reasoning note.** The inflated 89% figure raises the stakes of the argument; with the measured 40.3%, "Why WordPress?" still has an answer, but a smaller one. ## 🎯 Conclusion Keep it as a clear statement of an open-web value: judge WordPress, or its successor, by how loosely joined and replaceable it makes the web, and fund that from the web's winners. Both factual claims fail a check, and the "start something new" advice comes from someone building a new thing. Pair it with Winer's same-day quote-post of this essay. <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Tweets/My two cents about WordPress.md|My two cents about WordPress by Dave Winer]] ## Highlights - So ask me what I'd like to see WordPress do, and this is what I'd tell you. Start something new, don't change what you do with WordPress, it is what it is. It's a 20+ year old project with market problems. Most software doesn't even make it that far. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2bk00xbh4bwzf6qxvy8pber)) - Note: Recommendation: leave WordPress as is and start a new project, instead of reforming a 20-year-old codebase. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 - The fresh start I'd like to see done is WordPress from the point of view of the web. The new mission is not about a dollar return on investment, rather it's measured by how much the web becomes Small Pieces Loosely Joined with All Parts Replaceable. How empowered are developers, not WordPress developers, but web developres. The more that's happening in the web, the better it will be for everyone, but especially WordPress. Why WordPress? Because as they say it's 89 percent of the web. The web is like a huge oil spill that has never been cleaned up. Everything has to improve if we start work on cleaning up the messes. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2bk03n1p16c5ny0wcvjrfz4)) - Note: Success metric: how loosely joined and replaceable the web's parts become, not ROI. The "89 percent of the web" figure needs checking against W3Techs. - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - We *can* clean things up. Humans as a species are good at this if we put our minds to it. If you made billions on the web, why not put some of it to use in making it a web worth using. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2bk063d63vwjjc70mcz82yj)) - Note: Call to fund the commons: those who profited from the web should pay to repair it. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1