I’m actually surprised that there is not a popular news-oriented CMS (that I’m aware of). WP has survived so long despite the abysmal architecture and myriad of security issues because it’s just so damn flexible. It really has somehow both transcended blogging while being so stuck in it. I suppose it’s ubiquity, especially during the earlier days of corporate internet, allowed all walks of life to start a website with it. They made it super easy to find, install, buy, or build bespoke themes and plugins, which undoubtedly contributed to its widespread adoption.
I remember doing a lot of work with customizations integrating WP and phpBB specifically, which ended up earning me an unreasonable amount money for a 16 year old. I have a certain fondness of WP but it’s heyday has long past coinciding with the abandonment of the independent internet. I greatly worry about its future mainly because it’s demise would represent the end of an era.
Perhaps the backlash to centralized social media will provide an avenue for a platform like WP to see a resurgence, but Automattic would really need to make a conscious effort to pivot with the changing times if they want to ride that wave. It won’t be the Wordpress as we’ve known it but (hopefully) the ethos remains. I wish them all the luck.
You mention the security stuff, but for any site running at scale, it's not really an issue. They don't use a billion plugins and they usually run on infrastructure designed from the ground up to run WP. Heck, A8C's hosting platform (WP VIP) won't let you deploy code that doesn't pass a host of linting rules.
I'm working on a site right now for a big company that's moving to VIP. We have 7 plugins, 2 of which are from VIP, and then 4 that the company I work for wrote and now maintains for use across all of our clients. Everything else is custom. The theme is 100% custom.
When orgs choose WP, they do it because they want the interface to reduce training costs, and the platform to reduce dev costs because they can take that codebase to dozens of different consultancy agencies and have them pick up where the last people left off.
I remember doing a lot of work with customizations integrating WP and phpBB specifically, which ended up earning me an unreasonable amount money for a 16 year old. I have a certain fondness of WP but it’s heyday has long past coinciding with the abandonment of the independent internet. I greatly worry about its future mainly because it’s demise would represent the end of an era.
Perhaps the backlash to centralized social media will provide an avenue for a platform like WP to see a resurgence, but Automattic would really need to make a conscious effort to pivot with the changing times if they want to ride that wave. It won’t be the Wordpress as we’ve known it but (hopefully) the ethos remains. I wish them all the luck.