12 Reasons Why People Hate WordPress (Plus WordPress Drama)
We discuss a recent video from Darrel Wilson from his great YouTube channel; see his video below.
#1 – WordPress.org VS WordPress.com
#2 – Constant Updates
#3 – Security Issues
#4 – Constant UI Changes
#5 – Subscription Model
#6 – No Enforcement
#7 – Spam Notices
#8 – White Screen Of Death
#9 – Speed
#10 – Volunteer Dilemma
#11 – WordPress And Drama
#12 – Matt Mullenweg
This Week Show’s Sponsors
Sensei LMS: Sensei LMS
BlogVault: BlogVault
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
LaunchFlows: LaunchFlows
Episode Transcript
(00:00)
Intro: Welcome to the WP-Tonic this week in WordPress and SaaS podcast, where Jonathan Denwood interviews the leading experts in WordPress, e-learning, and online marketing to help WordPress professionals launch their own SaaS.
(00:14)
Jonathan Denwood: Welcome back, folks, to the WP-Tonic this week in WordPress and SaaS, this is episode 741. It’s going to be a special show; I have my colleague with me, Kurt. We have a great subject; we’re going to be discussing the 12 reasons why people hate WordPress plus WordPress drama. I got the idea from a great video on YouTube by Darrel Wilson. There’ll be a link to the video in the show notes, but go over there and watch the video. Darrel’s got a great YouTube channel about WordPress. I have invited him onto the podcast, hopefully, he will accept in the New Year. So, Kurt, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers?
(01:09)
Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah, yeah. My name is Kurt von Ahnen, I work with Jonathan and WP-Tonic. I also work with Lifter LMS, and I really just focus on membership and learning websites under my own agency as well. So, gosh, I’ve been with WordPress stuff now since 2004, Jonathan, this will be fun.
(01:28)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, you need to promote your own agency. What’s the name of your agency?
(01:32)
Kurt von Ahnen: Manana No Mas!
(01:34)
Jonathan Denwood: Right.
(01:34)
Kurt von Ahnen: I do a really bad job of self-promotion, maybe that’s my issue. But Manana No Mas! started in 2008 and we have about 350 websites based on WordPress out there floating around for clients.
(01:47)
Jonathan Denwood: That’s great. Kurt is very knowledgeable about Lifter and learning management systems in general, and he works with the WP-Tonic team. So, let’s, I don’t know if to go straight into it or go for our break first. Well, let’s go for our break first, folks. I have a couple of quick messages from a couple of major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks.
(02:17)
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(02:49)
Ad: The importance of backing up your WordPress website cannot be emphasized enough. We use BlogVault to help us do this on a daily basis; with free staging, migrations, and on the pro plans, malware scanning and auto-fix, BlogVault is the professional’s choice when managing just one website or many. Go to blogvault.com and see for yourself, you seriously won’t find a better, more complete solution. That’s blogvault.com, blogvault.com.
(03:20)
Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back. Just want to point out that we have some great special offers from the sponsors, plus we have a curated list of the best plugins and WordPress services. To get all of this knowledge and special offers, all you have to do is go over to wp-tonic/deals, wp-tonic/deals. And the special offers, and, as I said, a real full list of the best plugins by category, so if you have a specific problem and you’re looking for the best plugin, I’ve done all of the hard work for you.
So, go over there, it’s a great resource. So, let’s go straight into it, Kurt. So, first of all, you watched the video as well that Darrel did. What did you think, in general, of the points that he listed in the video?
(04:18)
Kurt von Ahnen: When the video started, I was taken back because it’s awkward, because we’ve chosen to make our living working in WordPress, right? So, I like to think that I like the platform, but then as I watched his video, I was like, Ooh, these are reasons why people would hate to work with WordPress. I think he did a really good job of breaking out and segmenting, very specifically, what his issues were, and I think he leaves a lot of room for comment.
(04:47)
Jonathan Denwood: Oh, I thought it was extremely fair, his insights and let’s go. I’ve from him and I’ve added a couple, I think we have about 12, so hopefully, we’ll see how we go and then we might finish off with bonus content, but we’ll try and get through all 12 I’ve listed. So, number one, wordpress.org versus wordpress.com. I think he’s totally spot on. This causes people a tremendous degree of confusion if they’re new to the WordPress space. What are your views about this, Kurt?
(05:31)
Kurt von Ahnen: I’ve worked with clients in this position, it is so frustrating. When you start consulting with people, you start trying to point them in the right direction, and then they say something that doesn’t make sense. And then you have to think, wait a minute. You’re not on a regular WordPress install, you’re on something else. And then you have to walk them like, are you on wordpress.com or wordpress.org? And then you end up having to reeducate them almost from scratch. To me, they are completely different products. And when customers try to grow off of a .com, it can be difficult.
(06:06)
Jonathan Denwood: I think wordpress.com should be called Tumblr or whatever. I think it needs to be renamed, don’t you? Or I don’t know. That’s the only way I can see how this can be dealt with or wordpress.org have to rename, but I think something has to be done. What do you reckon?
(06:34)
Kurt von Ahnen: Well, I think Darrel really hit it on the head when he said that when people come to that pricing page and they look at the four options on the pricing page, there is nothing there that says you’re getting something different if you select these two packages. There’s no nomenclature, there’s no description, and that, to me, is the problem. If they called it WordPress Lite even, I’d be happy if they said, oh, this is WordPress Lite and then this is WordPress Pro, or this is WordPress standard, or whatever, but something.
If they’re that attached to the WordPress name, which I would fully understand with the market share that they have, call it something related, but different, this is WordPress Lite, this is good for bloggers and hobbyists and people to be in a .com environment and rent their space. But if you want to go up a level, you have to go to our WordPress standard.
(07:30)
Jonathan Denwood: Well, I think, to be fair to him, it’s a bit like WP-Tonic. WP-Tonic is a hosting hybrid of a company, and wordpress.com is really a, kind of, hosted hybrid as well. And, in some ways, it’s a bit difficult to explain what you’re offering, really, isn’t it? Or am I just being a bit charitable on a late Thursday afternoon, Kurt?
(08:00)
Kurt von Ahnen: I think you’re being charitable. Because if I’m a wordpress.com client and I say, okay, I want to make this better, and I reach out to a Jonathan, a Kurt, somebody else, an implementer, and I go, oh, I really want my site to do this and this, and how come it won’t do it? You end up going into these things and go, well, that plugin’s not compatible and not all plugins are compatible with this platform and this is why. And you feel, as the implementer, that you’re having to burst this person’s bubble. Whereas, that bubble should have been burst when they signed up in the first place.
I’m going to sign up, this is a proof of concept and know that I’m going to have to grow into something different. And that’s just not what people believe when they sign up for it, there’s nothing that tells them different.
(08:49)
Jonathan Denwood: Right. Let’s go on to number two, constant updates. What are your thoughts about this one, number two?
(09:01)
Kurt von Ahnen: Everything updates. Absolutely everything somehow, someway updates. I just think about TPMS on cars, right? Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems. There are updates for everything. However, in our little environment, the updates are often very, very frequent. And sometimes when I look at the change log, I’m like, well, why did they have to push this out this week? Because you know they’re going to put out another one next week anyway.
(09:33)
Jonathan Denwood: But we have to clarify here. Are we talking about core or are we talking about the add-on plugins?
(09:39)
Kurt von Ahnen: Gosh, I guess I’m talking about all of it, Jonathan, because when I’m dealing with clients, it’s all of it all of the time. And if you make a deal, as you well know, you tell people we update your plug-ins every month, well, you’re still getting support tickets all of the time saying, my plugins show that they need updated. Well, yeah, that month hasn’t gone by yet. There’s just a constant thing. The core plugins and the change to blocks and stuff has all been really interesting to watch. And from that standpoint, I’m going to give them a little more grace, right?
Because when they transitioned to blocks and they really started making a lot of updates pretty quickly, I felt like they were really working on the product and I felt like they were making good strides. Now, I feel like we’re making really small incremental changes that I feel could be better served if they put them into bigger updates, you know what I mean? Not as frequent, but larger updates.
(10:33)
Jonathan Denwood: Well, I never, specifically, I think you’re commenting about updates to Gutenberg and the page building environment. I always felt that should have been kept separate as a plugin, but I understand the resistance to that, for you, because it has consequences, because people, then, will not adopt the new, it will slow the adoption dramatically. But my response to that, if it is clear, look at the traction Elementor made, other page builders, if it’s the best of breed, if it’s seen as the best solution, it will be adapt adopted quite rapidly even if it is a separate plugin.
So, I, personally, never; I understood the argument and I’m not saying my reaction to it is right or wrong, I’ve just been honest with my own, I never really bought into that and I still feel it would’ve been better served as being a separate plugin. Where the other thing is, on our service, as part of our hosting package, we update all of the plugins every week, because we can’t leave them to the month, because there could be a security problem there. And you get these tickets constantly about now I’ve logged in and, obviously, it’s also linked to the slightly outdated role permission structure of WordPress that really most users should just be able to use editor.
They shouldn’t really be logged in as admin, but you have to because editor won’t cope. There’s always some plugin, either a page builder or learning management add-on and they just don’t get enough permissions from the editor. It always, in my mind, it always needed a super admin account, which you get with Multisite, which has a super administrator and a sub administrator. So, that’s always been a pet peeve with me. Do you think I’m onto something there or do you think I’m not really there, really?
(13:21)
Kurt von Ahnen: I don’t know. I think, for me and my clients, I’ve been really pretty satisfied with the way it’s set up. I let them be admin, but for the most part, most of my clients take care of their updates and only call me if things go wrong.
(13:34)
Jonathan Denwood: Which can bite you if you have a e-commerce or an active in membership site. But what applies to a membership site really applies to e-commerce. But it’s also linked to all of these very in-your-face popups and other things in the dashboard, saying you need to update, you need to do this, that on the other. And I think Darrel was spot-on on his criticism and that’s linked to 0.6. Let’s go on to 0.3, security issues. What are your thoughts about that one?
(14:31)
Kurt von Ahnen: My thoughts are, once I began to have more accountability to myself as a professional, the less I had to worry about it. I can remember I had a couple of websites get hacked and it was a nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare to eradicate the issue, find the code, make the changes, all of that stuff. It was just a nightmare. And then I realized, wait a minute, because I was quite, and self-admittedly, I was an amateur at this thing, I wasn’t, actually, a pro.
And I was like, wait a minute, I have plugins I haven’t updated, I have things I’m not using, I have trail pieces of nonsense hanging around. And once you become accountable to yourself and audit your site better and eliminate your unnecessary plugins and keep things updated. I’ll be honest, Jonathan, I really haven’t had any issues. It’s been years since I’ve had any, kind of, issues. And there are products that help like Malcare and stuff like that.
(15:30)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah. Well, I think having a really quality hosting provider that deals with the Linux security element of the whole package, keeping your plugins up to date, having a decent username password on your admin accounts, and having a good partner like WP-Tonic or there are plenty of other great service maintenance partnerships that you can go with, especially if it’s a money-making website. But on the other hand, even on the e-commerce membership, your website should be making you money or donations or whatever.
So, there’s a, you know, but, especially when it comes to e-commerce and membership, you have to increase the security and you should have a good team player to help you there. But if you keep the plugins updated and also SaaS, there was a major membership player, a SaaS competitor to WordPress, and they were down for a whole day about a couple of months ago. So, don’t think it’s just WordPress these security problems affect. And one of the great things about WordPress is it’s out there in public, the core, or if a major plugin has a security problem, there’s a whole community and it’s soon made clear if they haven’t dealt with it.
When you’re dealing with SaaS, there is a track record of major security flaws and the companies have decided to keep it quiet and not make it public for commercial reasons, just do a Google search and you’ll see that I’m correct there. So, I think all of the things he’s listed, I, actually, think the most unfair accusation about WordPress is this security issue. In some ways, I think if you follow the best practice, it’s a bit of a red herring, but it’s still way up there, especially in the corporate world and some some other communities.
(17:59)
Kurt von Ahnen: It’s one of those, if you drop the ball, you’re going to get bit, and the way that it was proposed in the presentation was almost like it was WordPress’ fault. It’s not WordPress’ fault if you don’t take care of your stuff, you know?
(18:11)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, I would say of the video, which was, in general, excellent, I think the security issues were the one area where I would disagree with Darrel’s position, but I do understand what he was saying. Before we go for our break, let’s go for one more. Constant UI changes. Obviously, with something like WordPress, which you have a core interface and then you have over 60 plugins, keeping some level of UI consistency will not match a fully integrated SaaS product.
But you’re making a bargain, you’re also getting all that flexibility, which you won’t get with a SaaS product, but I also think this has been exacerbated by Gutenberg and in the decision to go to full-site editing, the consistent changes that we have seen with Gutenberg. I think this has exacerbated the situation to some extent. I understand, don’t get me wrong, it seems like sometimes that I’m really anti Gutenberg, that is not the truth.
It definitely needed a much better editing experience and we now seem to be skidding to an area where you can really see the power of Gutenberg, but I think it’s linked to the beginning of this conversation, when I said that I felt that Gutenberg should have been kept as a plugin and not being in core. So, I think they’re linked, what’s your own feelings about this, Kurt?
(20:20)
Kurt von Ahnen: I never really thought about it as Gutenberg and WordPress being separate, I always thought of them as being integrated, so, in my brain, it’s the same. As far as thinking about constant UI changes, I go back to everything updates and we all have to get used to it; if you looked at an iPhone 4, from back in the day, and you looked at an iPhone 14, the use and the swipes and the gestures are completely different, right? And that’s something that you’ve just had to grow into. Same with Android, I’m an Android user. So, my Pixel 3.
(20:56)
Jonathan Denwood: I’ll forgive you
(20:59)
Kurt von Ahnen: So, when I think about the constant UI changes, I go, well, that’s, kind of, expected. And I’ll tell you where I, kind of, hiccup is like, just yesterday I signed into a new client’s website and he has the classic editor plugin in there and I’m trying to fumble around in what I used to do years ago and I’m going, how did I work with this? And why are people choosing to use this?
To me, it’s feels like stepping so far back in time. And so, I, actually, even though I’m in my mid-fifties, I still like change, I like the advancement and because it’s WordPress and you can go back in time with that classic editor plugin and stuff, I’m like, I would much rather have the newer interface and have to learn it than keep fumbling around with the older system.
(21:50)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah.
(21:50)
Kurt von Ahnen: And the thing with Gutenberg blocks is, when I first load up a WordPress site and I have someone that wants me to work in blocks, it’s like, okay, I can do this. But I find that I need those other tools that are out there. I need to add all the other add-ons that go with Gutenberg, the essentials, the cadence blocks, the spectra, whatever it is to get that extra functionality or that extra control of that editor.
And that’s where I think there’s going to be a lot of room for growth with WordPress, they’re either going to have to find a way to suck those extra tools into their structure or find a better way to make more people understand how that stuff glues together. You know what I mean?
(22:33)
Jonathan Denwood: Well, it is tricky, because you get this consistently in the WordPress community or ecosystem. You have two currents that are going in two directions at the same. And what I mean by that is that, you remember, I don’t propose that we name them, but we were looking at calendar solutions, and you said one of the calendar solutions really takes over the whole backend and imposes their own UX design and you don’t like it. And I don’t like it. I prefer when they try and work with the traditional metaphor backend of WordPress, rather than taking over the whole screen with their custom UL design.
(23:28)
Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.
(23:29)
Jonathan Denwood: But other people would say, well, they do that because the backend of WordPress has shown its age and it’s dated. So, they’re both consistent arguments, are they? It’s not a black and white scenario, is it, in my mind?
(23:48)
Kurt von Ahnen: No, no, no, it’s true.
(23:50)
Jonathan Denwood: All right. You keep saying that, Kurt, because that’s the best way to handle me. Right. I’m only teasing. We’re going to go for our break, folks, we will be back in a few moments. We have a couple of messages from some other sponsors. Be back in a few moments.
(24:09)
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(24:41)
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(25:19)
Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back. I want to point it out, why don’t you look at WP-Tonic as your hosting partner, especially if you have clients looking to build a membership website on WordPress? Not only do you get fantastic hosting, we also offer great packages for developers, where you can earn consistent income by being a WP-Tonic partner. We also offer an enormous library of plugins so you don’t have to get into any arguments with clientele that doesn’t want to buy the best plugin. Plus, we update all of the plugins and core with you and we’re just a great partner, so you can really concentrate on providing the best solution to your customer.
To do that, all you have to do is go over to wp-tonic/partners, wp-tonic/partners and sign up to become a partner with WP-Tonic if you’re a WordPress professional. So, let’s go further. The subscription model and I think what Darrel meant by that was having all of these plugins and to get the updates and support, he, actually, thought that wasn’t totally fair and he thought that, my mind’s gone blank. CodeCanyon does it better, where you get updates for the life, but the support and maintenance, you get a couple of months of support and maintenance, but then to get continuous support and maintenance, you have to pay extra.
But the actual updates for the plugin, you get those for life. I, actually, agree with him there. I think, no, at WP-Tonic, we update all of the plugins and if they’re not on the maintenance, we will roll back the plugin to a previous version. I, actually, do agree with him there, I think it’s really messy. What your own views about this, Kurt?
(27:48)
Kurt von Ahnen: Well, I get to see this picture from both sides of the street, right? Because I work with another plugin developer. So, the funding has to come from somewhere. So, you either need to have a constant influx of new sales or you need to have a way that covers the maintenance and development of the product. And I think it depends on what type of product it is and how much ongoing development it’s going to require, Jonathan. If you create a widget that does a simple thing and then you’re like, here it is. Or, maybe, that needs to be a lifetime deal, and people need to come to terms with themselves on how they sell their stuff.
I can tell you, when you have a plugin that does this, this, this, this and there’s constantly a feature request channel, where they’re always asking for extra development and more stuff to happen, that funding has to come from somewhere and it comes from repeat sales in a lot of cases. So, I get the subscription model, but I ain’t happy about it either. As the customer, anytime there’s a lifetime deal, I’m a buyer. Like Astra, lifetime. Elementor, I think, was I lifetime for Elementor when it came out, I think they did one. Anything was lifetime. SuiteDash, lifetime. It’s out, I’ll take it. My video host is a lifetime deal, right?
As soon as they offer it, I’m on it, because those renewals always come at the worst possible times, you know? Right when a client cuts short on a contract or doesn’t pay an invoice is when plugins come due for payment and it’s when the rest of the bills are due that month, and you’re looking at your accounts and you’re going, I can’t believe I have to pay all of this out again. But we play in this park.
(29:35)
Jonathan Denwood: I totally agree with you and you’ve just done a great job of emphasizing why these people should be a partner with WP-Tonic. Because we buy all of the plugins, we have a sweet plugin.
(29:48)
Kurt von Ahnen: It’s true.
(29:48)
Jonathan Denwood: So, thank you there.
(29:48)
Kurt von Ahnen: You can say it again. You’re absolutely true.
(29:50)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, but you are right. See, there is no black and white here, folks. Darrel’s point of view I can understand, but I think you were really spot-on in what you were saying as well about. So, you can see it, I think Darrel’s position was the end-users and you’ve just, kind of, put yourself in the developer. And if developers and plugin shops can’t make revenue, that means there will be a lot less plugin choices. And I also.
(30:31)
Kurt von Ahnen: That could be a good thing.
(30:32)
Jonathan Denwood: What?
(30:34)
Kurt von Ahnen: But that could be a good thing.
(30:35)
Jonathan Denwood: Well, that’s a two-edged sword in its own right, isn’t it?
(30:40)
Kurt von Ahnen: Yeah.
(30:40)
Jonathan Denwood: So, as I said, a lot of these things, there is no right or wrong. So, number six, no enforcement. I thought this was an excellent point and a consistent, when I was doing my roundtable show, was a consistent thing that I hammered away. What are your views about what Darrel said about no enforcement?
(31:08)
Kurt von Ahnen: I have to say, I agree with the video pretty much completely. And I go back to the volunteer thing too. They, kind of, blend together, for me, because I try to think about how the organization’s put together, how they track things, how they do stuff. And it all, kind of, falls into one mush, you know? How do you think they should handle enforcement?
(31:34)
Jonathan Denwood: A lot better than what they are. And I think it’s this whole business of its volunteers, which I’m not having a go at them, I think they’ve done an excellent job. Obviously, he highlighted a discussion from a major plugin provider [Inaudible – 32:02]. And I’ve heard other horror stories, but you know that you’re dealing with human beings, especially when you’re dealing with support tickets, you can just very quickly get burnt out.
But the whole thing, to me, is a total hot mess. Absolute hot mess. And I think wordpress.org doesn’t have any direct revenue sources, I’ve put the idea that plugins should go through a quality coding check and a security check that’s provided by wordpress.org, and then they get a blue tick and be part. And I also feel wordpress.org should have a paid curated list of plugins that are pro plugins, but they’re not saying which is best, they only say that they’ve met quality standards through coding security, and there should be a list of requirements that the plugin shop has agreed to meet, and they should be charged for that.
And there are a lot of ways revenue and, at the present moment, the people in wordpress.org volunteers, they should be paid, but that would necessitate that there are more revenue streams that go with wordpress.org and the whole thing has been going this way and it’s been very frustrating and there doesn’t seem any chance of any change. These are great, what Darrel pointed out and I think other people have as well. It’s great stuff, but I just don’t see, and I gave up on it, because I just don’t see any drive in wordpress.org, in the founder, Matt Mullenweg in Automattic; I see absolutely no focus or any willingness to really look at this model. What do you reckon?
(34:35)
Kurt von Ahnen: Well, Jonathan, I’m a person of faith and you know I’m involved in church and I see it almost as a similar model. It’s how someone volunteers and instead of saying, Thanks for volunteering, they say, What can you do next? What can you do next? And next thing you know, you are just burning the candle at both ends and the quality of service that you’re able to give diminishes, because you’re relied on so heavily and you’re not being compensated for your time, let alone compensated correctly for your time.
The whole idea of running this thing on a volunteer process, to me, when I found out that that’s, because I didn’t know, when I found out that was the way that went, I think it was just a couple of years ago, I was like, you have to be kidding me. And I didn’t understand all of the rules until recently, about how a plugin can offer assistance through the forums and all of that, kind of, stuff.
And when I found out the rules about links and emails and all of that, I was like, so you can have a direct answer to help somebody and you can’t give them a direct answer to help somebody, because it’s going to break the rule to answer the question. And that, to me, was like, it’s horribly broken, because it’s not customer centric, it’s not vendor centric, it’s not anything centric. It just becomes.
(35:48)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah. As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to use my favorite word, Kurt, it’s bonkers. It’s just bonkers. It’s absolute, utterly bonkers. Onto the next one. Spam notices, which is a bit linked to constant UI changes, in a way. That he meant, these consistent banners, upgrade your plugin. This is another total hot mess, it’s a very similar situation. It’s linked to no enforcement, isn’t it? And the thing that’s really upset is that some of the worst players seem to be given special treatment, where other people, they’re hammered.
There doesn’t seem to be any consistency about who gets hammered by wordpress.org and who just gets the red light or the yellow light and gets at it. What are your own thoughts about this?
(36:57)
Kurt von Ahnen: Dealing with clients, I think this is one of the most frustrating things that I see. Because you do the hard work, you put together a package, a program that meets their best use case and you build them the package, the tools they need to make the best business decision for their project. And then all of this crud comes up in their dashboard and then comes the support tickets, phone calls, and emails with, do I need this? Do I need that? I’m getting notified about this, I’m getting notified about that.
And my thought the whole time, because it makes me angry, I’m like, if the plugin developers resent offering it as a freemium example; they never should have put it out that way. Because if it meets the need, there’s no reason to upgrade. I’m all about pro services and add-ons and all of those, as long as they meet the use case. But if the base product meets the use case, leave my client alone, because all it does is create heartache and second-guessing down the road.
(37:57)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, I think that’s a great point. So, let’s go, last one and then we’ll wrap up the podcast. We have about four others, which you’ll be able to listen and watch if you go over to the WP-Tonic YouTube channel, and you should subscribe to that as well, that really supports the show. So, the white screen of death, this has reduced to some degree, but it’s still out there. But this is linked to utilizing really cheap hosting and that uses out a date versions of PHP or you not updating plugins. They’re the two main things, in my experience, that leads to the white screen. What are your own views about that?
(38:56)
Kurt von Ahnen: I didn’t have much interaction with this, particular, problem until a really well-known major plugin did an update six months ago and I had 10 websites, because they were on auto update, which, I guess, I shouldn’t have done for my client.
(39:10)
Jonathan Denwood: Well, that’s naughty, I never ever would auto update.
(39:15)
Kurt von Ahnen: But, all of a sudden, I’m spending a whole day disabling plugins and copying plugin files and renaming things and rolling back plugins and what a nightmare. And it’s like, wow, this is what it comes down to, super annoying. I wish if there was a fault or something like that, you would still get a site, but at reduced functionality or something. But to have it go completely white and dead, that scares the crud out of people.
(39:47)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, it always happens that, but, as I said, if you have a really good hosting provider, you don’t always get what you pay for, but normally you do. And you’re just not going to get great hosting below $10 a month. You’re going to be looking at 10 to $20 plus, depending, and if you’re looking at a membership website or e-commerce, it’s 30 to 50 range, depending what, it’s just the reality. But that should be a moneymaking website, which is a total different scenario to, I’m going to utilize a term which I hate using, it’s only a marketing website; I think that’s a ridiculous term anyway. It has all kind of connotations, which I don’t like anyway, but I’m still using that term.
We’re going to wrap up the podcast part of the show, we have about four other points that we want to get through. You can watch the whole interview and the bonus by going over to the YouTube channel, the WP-Tonic YouTube channel. If you found this podcast and you find the additional information really useful, please subscribe to the YouTube channel, it really does help the show. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you, what you’re up to and your services, Kurt?
(41:24)
Kurt von Ahnen: Manana No Mas! is the best way to find me because I’ve had that name forever and it’s all over the internet. So, Manana No Mas!, make tons of content, easy to find. Focused on membership and learning websites, and I like to help agencies find success with that kind of material as well. So, I’m open to a lot of conversations, just look me up, and I’m on LinkedIn two hours a day. So, LinkedIn is Kurt von Ahnen and just like it’s spelled on the screen there and I look forward to meeting you.
(41:51)
Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, Kurt really knows his stuff, he’s very experienced in management and the corporate world as well. So, if you’re looking for advice, if you’re an agency, Kurt is a great resource, so I highly recommend him. We’ll be back next week. Have a great interview with a great founder and a personality in WordPress. We will be interviewing Adam Pressler from WP Crafter. Always a great conversation with Adam. It should be a lively one, Adam doesn’t mince his words. So, it will be our last show of 2022, but we’ll be going out with a good conversation, I feel. We’ll be back next week, folks. Bye.
(42:42)
Outro: Hey, thanks for listening, we really do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group and also to keep up with the latest news, click wp-tonic.com/newsletter. We’ll see you next time.
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