Me Pontificating Against the Powerful
I just wrote a scathing editorial over at Performancing targeted at Matt Cutts and Matt Mullenweg. I think it’s well worth the read and touches on some fundamental issues that all of us individual entrepreneurs are going to be dealing with for the rest of our lives.
Feedback is appreciated, because those of us who are “little” are truly going to be fighting this war with the “big guys” for a long time. It’s about the responsibility that big companies have to the little guy. And we really need to stand up and fight against these “blanket” solutions that ultimately do more harm than good.
While Lorelle thinks the deal is done….I say we fight for compromise.
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I do not “think” the deal is done. I reported what Matt said.
You also are missing a lot of history. This issue has come up a lot over the last two years. It has been thoroughly debated and quite a while ago, Matt Mullenweg (what does Matt Cutts has to do with WordPress and this issue, I have no idea) put it on the Idea forum and said that while he had his opinion, he wanted to hear from the WordPress Community. They spoke. LOUDLY.
Designers are unhappy with this issue. But not all. Some get it that donating their work for WordPress is a way to give back and create some public portfolio work, then they get down to business building your web design business, they are happy. It’s the ones that put all their energy into the negative side of this and take advantage that really honk off WordPress users.
WordPress users made it very clear that they don’t like the underbelly of what is known as sponsored WordPress Themes. This is not the ones that have been paid for and then released to the public after use. This is about the abusive techniques that make WordPress users so angry and resentful when they find these links, especially the ad links, they remove them, and get screamed at and threated with legal action.
That leads to a lot of mess. From all perspectives.
If you want to release paid, sponsored, ad-filled WordPress Themes, do so. There is nothing stopping you. Start your own business! Many have, in fact. You’d have a lot of competition. You can buy WordPress Themes or “rent them” with ads in them all over the place in many languages.
What Matt, and many of us associated with WordPress, did was ask for a show of voices on how the WordPress Community wanted to move forward on this issue. The users spoke very loudly. And the decision was based upon the democracy, not the single handed power monger you are talking about.
If sensible and intelligent arguments can be brought to the table again to change this new policy, then I’m sure we’d all listen. So far, in two years, I’m still waiting.