---
title: "Who’s Left to Build WordPress?"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/who-s-left-to-build-wordpress--qt60p0ff4
source_url: https://wpmayor.com/whos-left-to-build-wordpress
type: article
source: "WP Mayor"
published: 2026-06-22T16:57:35.910Z
updated: 2026-06-22T17:02:41.753Z
tags: ["open-source", "php", "wordpress", "cms"]
reading_time: 23
upvotes: 29
comments: 10
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Who’s Left to Build WordPress?

**[WP Mayor](https://daily.dev/sources/wpmayor)** · 23 min read · 29 upvotes · 10 comments

## Summary

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.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://wpmayor.com/whos-left-to-build-wordpress>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@borderbabe2412** · 9 upvotes

> WOW first amazing post that actually calls on the core WP issue that I have seen in a while

**@kau\_** · 7 upvotes

> "Subscriptions replaced ownership across software in general, and people stopped expecting to run their own infrastructure for anything."
>
> What a shame.

**@shapeshifta** · 3 upvotes

> a cultural shift away from self-hosted sites toward managed platforms? I see more and more self-hosting, because of increasing prices and annoying business models. self-hosting is freedom...

**@noricode** · 0 upvotes

> Fork it! Roll your own

**@carsonstricker** · 0 upvotes

> The most detrimental thing to WordPress at the moment is Mullenweg.

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---

Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#php](https://daily.dev/tags/php), [#wordpress](https://daily.dev/tags/wordpress), [#cms](https://daily.dev/tags/cms)

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