> The issue is that if you’re developing like this on WP you don’t gain much from it except the ability to use a select few plugins and an admin UI. At this point why not use a solid PHP framework like Laravel?

Agreed, if you have a dedicated engineering team, but most non-tech companies that need basic websites don't...so in that context, Wordpress's admin UI is a big gain. It's familiar to users and provides media management functionality out of the box. The vast majority of CMSs have terrible/non-intuitive admin UIs and limited functionality. Leaving aside Gutenberg and the rest of the garbage pile that is Wordpress, the admin is the primary selling point of Wordpress IMO.

I can tell you that new users like Gutenberg. It is us, the old shortcode style users, that have/had a problem with it. It took me some time to switch to it but I must say that I like it now.

Things like copy/paste from Google docs with keeping all of relevant the styles and links works. And I guess that a bunch of users is doing that - using WP as a platform for distribution of content.

It's not just shortcode using admins who don't want to use Gutenberg. There are many people who have used any one of various visual composers for years. They generally don't have the time or inclination to learn a new workflow that doesn't support what they already do.

Having a classic editor plugin has nothing to do with characterizing people as crufty throwbacks who can't learn new things. Many people are in the business of their business and don't care to learn the next new-greatest-software every few months.

Yes, I get it. I've used Elementor, DIVI, Beaver Builder, WPBakery , ... And I always hated when I had to switch to a new builder for some new project.

Seconding this, end users do seem to like how much they can do themselves with it

Especially when you add custom blocks specific to their site needs

I was on the other side of the table, I was working for a company that was developing WP plugins bunt I'm not a developer. During my years there I've meet a lot of developers. I've seen different approaches. The most surprising thing to me was headless WP. I didn't get why do they even want WP.

Take a look at WooCommerce. I guess that it is much easier to do some of the custom code than to reinvent a wheel. Not to mention learning users on how to do something in a totally different environment.

Headless WooCommerce is actually pretty cool - you get free admin UI for managing the shop, and can build whatever frontend you like without the constraints of WordPress. Seems like a no-brainer for anyone who can do a bit of frontend development.

Only if you don't want/need to tap in to any plugin ecosystem. WooCommerce is the worst in this regard as basically everything is bolted on using actions/filters which only work in the traditional theme route.

I can answer this: because people do not want to pay for a developer, they want to pay for a designer. (It is exceedingly rare to find both in a single person.)

The designer can, within the structure and strictures of Wordpress, build a site with all the whizzy things the client wants, and they can charge $X for it. A developer can do all of that as well, but they will probably need a designer as well (see above parenthetical), and it will cost $X * 2.

The counter to that is, "well, just build a good templating system and tweak that for other clients, and you're good." Which is true, and that's why there are lone PHP developers out there who make a decent living with a stable of clients.

One of the worst aspects of Wordpress is dealing with the infuriating and opaque reasons why a particular site is slow. A relatively simple site can be maddeningly slow for any number of reasons, and finding them is like searching for a contact lens in a full bathtub.

Cause and effect. Pay bad, get bad.

If performance is a real business concern (and when is it not?), hire developers, not designers.

Hire developers, not WordPress developers. Because the latter will push WP onto a project where clearly the downsides, like performance, outweigh the benefits. But the latter may pick WP when it is a good fit.

I was with you until the end there. Tools for performance monitoring exist. Query Monitor is a great starting place for a free plugin. Lighthouse will tell you if you have a million blocking requests. New Relic is offered by any web host worth a damn and WP plays very nicely with it.

Fair enough, but you just listed three different tools, and you may have to go through all of them to find what's going on, and come out the other end just as lost.

I mean, I get it. I've written some stuff that screws the pooch performance-wise, and the solution isn't immediately clear. But with WP, and with enough installed plug-ins, the reason for the slowness may simply be "in order to work with WP, there is a lot of back-and-forth with the DB amongst all these plug-ins," and there ultimately isn't anything you can do about it.

WP is amazing that it does so much and works as well as it does, but let's not pretend it's not a bit of a faff sometimes.