[busterarm]

That's on the customers. I used to work at a shop that used WP and it was a huge force multiplier. We were WP Engine customers and at some point we moved to Pantheon.io and then we moved to a static site with an internal-only WP frontend for content editors.

We had 2 developers, a PM, 20-30 content writers and $5B ARR. Websites were strictly for marketing/leadgen. Even when we switched to building a static site, we still had our content editors write markdown in WordPress because it was easier to do that and pull all of the content from the database on deploy than train them.

The absolute worst part of being a WP Engine customer was being on Linode and the yearly Christmas Eve DDOS.

[manuelmoreale]

> That's on the customers

No that’s on the various design agencies that sell “custom websites” and instead they just slap together a 59$ theme and a dozen plug-ins. Most customers don’t know shit about the web and they just trust the agency to do a professional job. And in my 10+ years of experience as a freelancer I’ve seen plenty of agencies taking advantage of clients.

[pluc]

WordPress has the same problem as PHP: it's too easy to do what you want the wrong way. The right way is great, but the wrong way is easier, cheaper, more common, more documented, etc.

[manuelmoreale]

Totally agree.

Wordpress used as a CMS where you build everything from scratch using built in functions and the absolute minumum number of plugins (in my experience it was exactly 1, ACF) can generate sites that are solid.

I have projects I built a decade ago that are still online, are still running and haven't been hacked.

The problem is that the overwhelming majority of WP sites aren't built like that. Because "there's a plugin for that". And you end up with these monster sites with dozen of plugins, each importing their own scripts and styles, all injecting their own crap, all bringing in their own issues. And you use those on kitchen-sink style themes that are designed to do everything and end up doing nothing well.

But that's the inevitable result when you lower the barrier to the point where one can just click buttons and install whatever.

[busterarm]

Supply and demand.

These businesses exist and operate the way they do because of customer desires. The customers could hire better agencies but for a number of reasons don't.

[manuelmoreale]

Sorry but saying that it’s “customer desire” is nonsense. Most customers don’t have the skills to judge the work they receive. They know they need something done. They trust someone. How are they supposed to know if what they got was subpar? It’s like that in every profession. You have to trust that the person on the other side is professional and more often than not they’re not.

[nottorp]

> Websites were strictly for marketing/leadgen.

So they weren't web sites but spam.

What I'm curious about though is if your former workplace still exists or is now AI generating the spam...

[manuelmoreale]

That’s pretty unfair. Most of the work I do can be considered “marketing” since it’s corporate sites and portfolios. Businesses need to have an online presence of some sort and someone has to create one for them. Not everything is SEO spam.

[nottorp]

> it’s corporate sites and portfolios

Oh wait. You used "corporate sites and portofolios". The OP used the generic "content" though. There's a difference.

[manuelmoreale]

OP said “Websites were strictly for marketing/leadgen” which is just marketing sites. But pretty much all business sites are marketing. If you don’t have an e-commerce and you’re not a saas of some sort, you have a marketing site. It’s there for visibility and to provide information.

[busterarm]

Not spam at all. I just don't want to be so obvious about what the business was, even though I've mentioned it in the past.

Think top 10 keywords space and spanning about 4-5 of them.

It's the largest business in its space and a major national advertiser both digitally and traditionally. You have seen their ads on the street, on TV, on websites and on Youtube.

Even internationally, you have seen their ads on TV. Big hint.

[nottorp]

:) I don't watch TV and run ad blockers online, sorry.

When you're using terms like marketing, leads and content writers, it sounds like a content mill with zero substance. Even if it's "top 10 keywords".

[andruby]

> 2 developers, a PM, 20-30 content writers and $5B ARR

Please tell me that these 30 people weren't the full company generating $5B in annually recurring revenue?

[busterarm]

No we had an army of call center folks, case managers, etc. But given the nature of the business there is no sales, only marketing generating revenue.

Basically, no our marketing team didn't turn the coal into diamonds, but obtaining the coal was our team's primary function and 100% our output. We spent several hundred million annually on advertising (roughly the GDP of Tonga!).