How WordPress Should Have Done It Right
How WordPress Lost Its Way with WordPress.com — And What They Should Have Done Instead
When we look back, it’s easy to see that WordPress changed the web forever.
It gave millions of people the power to create websites without paying massive license fees or being tied to one company’s platform.
But somewhere along the way, a key mistake was made: WordPress.com.
Instead of building on the strength of their open-source community, Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) tried to create a hosted platform that competes with pure blogging services and website builders. And in doing so, they broke what made WordPress special in the first place: freedom and flexibility.
What Should Have Happened
1. Keep WordPress.org at the Center
All roads should have led to WordPress.org.
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Keep it open.
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Keep it self-hosted.
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Keep full control in the hands of users.
WordPress should have remained the toolkit — the starting point for personal blogs, small business websites, huge corporate portals, and everything in between.
2. Offer Premium Services, Not Platforms
Instead of trying to build a boxed-in blogging platform, Automattic could have done something much smarter:
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📦 Offer premium support for businesses: 24/7 help, updates, backups, performance tuning.
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🔧 Offer consulting services: theme development, plugin optimization, security audits.
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☁️ Offer cloud hosting partnerships: simple, scalable hosting solutions without creating a walled garden like WordPress.com.
Businesses that needed help could simply buy it, without losing control over their website.
3. Price Premium Services Correctly
No cheap $5 plans trying to chase bloggers.
No confusing freemium limitations.
Instead:
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Real premium pricing for real premium services.
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Make it clear: if you want world-class support and management, it costs serious money — but you own everything.
This would have attracted serious customers without alienating small users.
Why This Would Have Worked
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It would have kept developers and designers close to the platform.
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It would have allowed small businesses to grow naturally from DIY to professionally managed, without jumping platforms.
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It would have kept WordPress’s identity clean: open, free, flexible.
Instead of competing badly with Wix, Squarespace, Blogger, and other closed platforms, WordPress could have stayed the powerful engine behind millions of websites — not trying to become a limited boxed version of itself.
Closing Thoughts
WordPress was at its best when it stood for freedom, choice, and community.
Trying to box it up into WordPress.com blurred that vision — and hurt both users and the brand.
The lesson?
Open source wins when you build services around freedom, not when you take freedom away.