Who’s Left to Build WordPress?

WordPress still powers 41.5% of the web but faces four converging pressures: an aging developer base, a cultural shift away from self-hosted sites toward managed platforms, AI tools dismantling the simple-site market that WordPress historically dominated, and a governance crisis stemming from Matt Mullenweg's unchecked control over WordPress.org infrastructure. The plugin economy is bifurcating — enterprise and commerce use cases remain sticky, but undifferentiated plugins whose functionality AI can replicate have no defensible future. The Automattic vs. WP Engine legal battle, near-total withdrawal of sponsored contribution hours, and suppression of community voices have damaged trust among the developers WordPress most needs. The author, a decade-long WordPress plugin business owner, argues the platform is narrowing into a serious-end tool while the casual and mid-market segments erode, and that only governance reform — not market forces — is reversible.