| More like the blogging community. The reason WP is so popular now is because MovableType stopped being free like 7 or 8 years ago. Bloggers left in droves to the only other platform anywhere close to capable enough to handle their needs. Now a whole lot of people who made money from blogging and therefore had money to spend created a market for developers to learn how to use WP. The premium themes market, as controversial as it was when it first emerged, further drove investment of time in learning the system and building plugins. Then, because people wanted to maximise their financial return from their initial investment, WP began to be used for all sorts of shit like as a CMS and eCommerce platform, for membership sites, you name it. The cycle now feeds into itself: there is a huge market which attracts developers who in turn make WP a safe choice for webmasters who know they need a well supported platform, in turn contributing to increase in market size. The most interesting thing about it all is that, despite it being such a monstrosity in it's implementation, from a user perspective it's a pretty good system - proof that with enough time and manpower one can, indeed, polish a turd. |