Conversation

Replying to
Gutenberg has the feel of a large corporate leap-forward vision though. The good part is that it’s a move to the future. The worrying part is that it looks a bit like Google Wave or Google+. Evolution by 5-Year Plan. Part self-disruption new game, part self-preservation endgame.
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But the fact that no true new “modern” challenger CMS has emerged in years, only platforms like Medium, and platformized-WordPress (Wordpress.com, WPengine which I use) suggests that the “CMS” era proper may be over. The backend has to be serverless now.
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Gutenberg is a bit of a Great Leap attempt on the frontend, but the backend will not so much leap as dissolve into the cloud. Not sure how that will work with aging PHP core, a 90s-era COBOL-of-the-web that is only worth keeping going at enormous cost because so much runs on it.
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I’ve often idly (and not too seriously) worried about PHP being the backend of WP. Now I think “backend” and “CMS” will cease to be meaningful before PHP grinds into obsolescence. Future: Shift a lot of the weight to the front-end, switch out the backend for a more cloudy one.
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At some point I suspect the “self-hosted” kind of Wordpress which many think of as “real” blogging — downloading/installing on your own server — will be a historical curiosity option. Like people running 8-bit DOS games in emulators. It is already no longer a serious option.
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Back when I used shared-server ISP (Dreamhost), they were pressing me to upgrade to a “personal server” (a VM basically). I saw that as a sign they’d eventually either charge for admin services or force you to admin a VM. Which is what you’d do today (likely on Digital Ocean)
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For those who’ve never run a serious site, this is the equivalent of having to self-checkout and bag your own groceries. Instead of just doing light admin on the specific website software, you’d do heavier admin: server OS upgrades, web server configuration etc. Not fun.
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So I sucked it up and moved to a 10x costlier solution in 2014. Instead of a $10/mo shared server, I ended up on a $100/mo managed WPengine account. Usually, I end up with $50-150/mo in overage charges since our traffic is above the band we’re in but not yet at next level
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Today the “self-hosted” alternative for ribbonfarm would probably be a $20/mo Digital Ocean droplet with 10x the admin time and knowledge than I needed to run things on Dreamhost in 2012. Basically out of the question. Cloudy app-level managed Wordpress is the only game in town.
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Replying to
I’m curious why you didn’t go for the $20 option with freelance $500 ‘projects’ to upgrade the software every few months. That would have saved you a lot of pain as a good freelance fellow would have all the technical knowledge.
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Replying to
once you’ve reached the level where you have, some overhead needs to be managed. Most people get a social media manager kind of persona. Some get a professional photographer. Most *need* a sysadmin once a few months.
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