[photomatt]

It was pretty different in a way that brought millions of people into WordPress, but it has evolved in a way that makes a lot of sense to people, clarifying what WordPress is, what the host is, and what the application layers on top of it are. And the new AI / Telex / Studio stuff is super cool.

[nchmy]

Why do you have to pay for using plugins on wp dot com, which are free everywhere else in wordpress, Matt?

[p3ob7o]

Everywhere else where you have to pay for hosting, you mean?

On WordPress.com, you can pay for hosting plans, some of which give access to plugins and themes, but you also have free hosting without.

Elsewhere, you pay for hosting; there's generally no free option. Then you get plugins and themes included with that.

In the end, to use WordPress with plugins and themes, you pay some amount to the company that hosts it for you.

Disclaimer: I work for Automattic, but the opinions here are my own.

[nchmy]

Please see my response to Matt's sibling comment. If this is truly your own opinion, and you can't see that it is just laughably wrong, then you're definitely working in the right place!

[photomatt]

Please tell me where you can run arbitrary PHP code in the cloud for free, I'm curious to see how they manage that and what limits they put before they start charging.

We've invested a ton in products like WordPress Studio, which let you run unlimited local copies of WordPress with however many plugins, themes, etc you want.

[nchmy]

I'm talking about how from something like 2005-2017, you couldn't install plugins at all.

Then from 2017 until apparently the last couple months, you had to upgrade past the Free, Personal and Premium plans to the $25/mo Business plan in order to install plugins.

Now it looks like its just your free tier can't do it - I suppose that's fine. 20 years of providing a bastardized simulacra of wordpress was long enough!

All other hosts have always provided full-fledged wordpress with plugin installation with all plans

But, of course you knew all of that and were just trying to misdirect people, yet again. I now fully expect some half-truth pedantic response about a technicality about dates, plan names, or a niche host who also provides a simulacra.

[photomatt]

As the lead of the software I do have an opinion about which functionality is core to the user experience and which isn't. The WP.com paid plans offered a ton, including unlimited traffic, 24/7 support, stats, multi-datacenter replication, and dozens of more features above what most paid WP hosting plans offer, but we reserved custom code at the higher-priced plans. Due to getting more efficient over the years, we can now offer it on all paid plans, but that wasn't economically feasible before. There are dozens of other WordPress Multi-site hosts like Edublogs that offer the same trade-off we used to, it's built into the core code. I'm sorry that wasn't a good fit for your needs, but it has worked well for millions of people over two decades.

Maybe you think Coca-cola should taste a certain way, and want to sell that to consumers, but without commercial rights to the trademark you can't do that under the Coca-cola brand, you have to call it something else.

[nchmy]

As you know, this discussion has nothing to do with the WordPress trademark (which, among plenty of other things, you lied about for many years)

It has to do with you calling WP Engine a "hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WordPress" for turning off post revisions, which are an extremely minor part of WordPress (and could be turned back on upon request).

All while - rather than "reserv[ing] custom code at the higher-priced plans" (which is yet another baffling lie) - for the first 12+ years, custom code and plugins (the core of Wordpress and open-source) were completely unavailable[0]. And then for another 8 years it was only available on $25+ plans.

So, I reiterate: WP dot com is/was the most hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WP anywhere.

But, apparently by your logic, when you cheat the IRS via self-dealing and lie to the entire WordPress community about relinquishing control over WP, only to secretly take it back in the same day, that gives you the right to sell RC Cola as Coca Cola - causing endless confusion to newcomers about what Wordpress really is. It was "WordPress with an asterisk" [1] as you yourself recently put it - except there was never any asterisk anywhere, and especially so til 2017.

You're really not good at this Matt. You should get off the internet.

p.s. Lest you claim, like you have so many times when faced with criticism, that I am a paid shill for WP Engine: No one should use either of your services.

[0]: https://wordpress.com/blog/2017/08/07/wordpress-com-business...

[1]: https://ma.tt/2025/08/simplification

[gkbrk]

You can run arbitrary PHP code for free in Oracle's free tier.

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

[photomatt]

Today I learned!