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by manuelmoreale 633 days ago
> 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.
2 comments
pluc 633 days ago
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.
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manuelmoreale 633 days ago
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.

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busterarm 633 days ago
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.

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manuelmoreale 633 days ago
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.
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