[robotbikes]

And this just illustrates the horror that is the proprietary market place of WordPress plugins. It is annoying because this results in incentives to take away freedom from users and require payment for proprietary code in the guise of a free software project. To expand Word Press functionality beyond the core functions you have to wade through a minefield of freemium plugins that have all been slightly broken to encourage you to shell out money to someone for code you won't have any freedom with and the worst of it possibly demonstrated by code like this. I have built some sites with WordPress but I have always felt stifled by the way the plugins and themes are distributed. On the other hand I understand people like being able to charge money and create businesses from the code they right which can be more challenging if you actually write free as in libre software vs. attempting to extract money from every potential user.

[pmlnr]

For my personal site, I've left WP behind about 3 years ago. I had to go back last month, trying to build something instead of a Wix site for a school, and the experience was terrifying: after adding one of the events plugin, within 5 minutes I started getting spam registration. All plugins have ugly admin interface "extras" and are very pushy to buy them.

The WordPress of 2007, which I loved very much, has nothing to do with this monster of 2019.

[skilled]

I share a similar sentiment. Since about 2-3 years ago, most WordPress plugins are marketed bloatware that messes up the entire dashboard UI. And don't get me started on plugins that don't let you close their notifications unless you do "some thing".

It really is a shame, because frankly speaking - most of these plugins are utter trash anyway.

[pmlnr]

I've tried out a massive amount of gutenberg block plugins; whichever added a new line in the admin menu instead of adding it into a submenu of settings, deserves immediate deletion.

[dhimes]

On the plus side, you can see the code and turn those off. So if you think of the plugins as a starting point it's not so bad.

[bluedino]

You get what you pay for with Wordpress plugins. There are some great free ones that are mainained.

Then you get ones that can't survive minor wordpress upgrades, or are full of security holes.

The worst is when you have a highly motivated person who throws a ton of them together to buid a website, and then it languishes and becomes out of date, and any upgrading you do will start culling plugins from their baby.

[josefresco]

> And this just illustrates the horror that is the proprietary market place of WordPress plugins.

Same stories emanate from the Google Play marketplace, and to a lesser extent the highly curated Apple app store marketplace. How is WordPress any different?

> you have to wade through a minefield of freemium plugins

Just like every other app store.

> for code you won't have any freedom with

Unlike smartphone apps, or apps for my PC I can and do inspect the source code of any WordPress plugin or theme.

> I have built some sites with WordPress but I have always felt stifled by the way the plugins and themes are distributed

I'd feel the same way about platforms I've only been exposed to a few times as well.