[apatters]

They built Gutenberg because a significant and growing percentage of the user base was resorting to page builder plugins like Divi, Elementor etc. to create richer layouts than what the classic editor could handle. These plugins have a lot of drawbacks: non-portability of content, they break the WP theming model, they cost money, they've historically had performance/security/stability issues, etc.

Basically WP did not want to cede control over something as essential as the editing experience to a bunch of third parties, but it was happening because of the limitations of the classic editor.

I have issues with some elements of how they approached the problem but doing nothing would have been a worse choice. I can't say that I've seen a simple, blog-like project where using Gutenberg was a big negative. The classic editor will probably always be around, it's just a wrapper around TinyMCE and there's tons of community interest in keeping it alive.

[CaptArmchair]

That's only part of the story.

WordPress provides hooks that make it possible to alter the editing experience in the first place. It would be far cheaper to simply alter the API's to stop making this possible. Of course, that would break a ton of plugins and turn away a chunk of the community. So, the big question still remains: why offering a fundamentally different editing experience through Gutenberg and block editing?

While wp.com and wp.org are different organizations, they are tightly intertwined through code, functionality and a shared design vision. WordPress itself has come a long way from it's original value proposition: a tool for bloggers. Today, it's used as a platform for managing media experiences that powers a big part of the marketing and online communication & publishing industry.

There's big money in being able to sell a seamless, integrated, flexible editing experience that allows publishers to quickly design and publish online flyers, set up marketing / advertising / informational campaigns and so on. WordPress isn't the only CMS that moves towards such an integrated media experience. Others, like Drupal / Acquia, are on a single trajectory as well. And then there's plenty of CMS'es like CraftCMS, OctoberCMS, Ghost and so on.

The downside is that the adding a layer of bells and whistles to the UI, as well as the added complexity to the theming API (block themes,...) tend to alienate the original user base. Many of those used WordPress because it sat at that sweet spot of being able to relatively easily deploy, customize and publish on your own personal weblog.

Sure enough, WordPress still offers to create your own blog. But it's not the same tool as it was some 18 years ago. Neither is the Web the same as it was 18 years ago. And so, to many of its original users, wondering whether WordPress is still the right tool to maintain a personal blog in this day and age is a very real question.

[dazc]

> "The classic editor will probably always be around, it's just a wrapper around TinyMCE..."

So why not just keep it as an option? Is it because 90% of current users would just do that?

Adapting to the block editor hasn't turned out to be the end of the world but it still feels like a solution to a problem that never existed.

[jorams]

> So why not just keep it as an option? Is it because 90% of current users would just do that?

They do offer it as an option, that's what the Classic Editor plugin is. It's provided by Automattic and automatically suggested when you open the plugin directory.