I have a problem.
Everywhere I turn right now, I see monsters.
Yesterday, it was WordPress.org.
Today, it’s WP Engine.
Day before that it was Google.
In the middle? All of our clients, and millions of others, who don’t have a say in what these monsters will say or do as they square off in the full thrall of their self interest.
Cause that’s the thing about the giant monsters isn’t it… they’re huge, powerful, and impressive… but childish.
They’re dumb.
Selfish.
Destroying themselves and everything around them just because they get a bit stuck in their own story.
And who pays for it?
You and me.
The citizens running scared in the streets because no one really gave us much of a choice. This is what it is to be small business in the land of monsters.
In case you missed it, this week WordPress – a not for profit organization that runs an open source software project – decided to extort millions from WP Engine, by implementing a policy change that leverages the suffering of individual people and businesses to try to enforce WP Engine into compliance with their desire for money in a ‘licensing agreement.’
WP Engine’s crime? They grew big enough and made enough money to be a target.
So the open source software company cut WP Engine off because, “it benefitted from the open source WordPress project without giving back sufficiently.”
Just like all of us do that use the open source product in an open source way… or have built businesses providing services relating to it.
From what I can see and find this appears to be the personal business vendetta of Matt Mullenweg, WordPress founder and Automattic CEO, a man who created an ‘open source software product’ while simultaneously creating a vehicle to sell that product in ‘Automatic’ and is worth… roughly 400 million USD.
That guy.
That guy is throwing every customer WP Engine has under the bus to get more money… probably less because he needs it and more because it hurts him somewhere special that latecomers ‘WP Engine’ have picked up the same challenge he did to monetize the open source product… and outperformed them dramatically in selling services related to the free-to-all-product.
But I’m speculating.
Still, I can’t see any reason for this other than hubris, pride, or greed.
However, as scary as that is… learning that WordPress is less ‘an open source community’ and more a ‘founder-controlled-corporation-for-extortion by yet-another-billionaire-techbro’… the real problem is what comes after.
The real problem is that WP Engine isn’t going to pay for any of this – we will.
You and me.
WP Engine is a highly profitable investment engine for private equity. It isn’t a person.
It’s not your friend.
It’s not even a broadly owned public company where you can argue that ‘hurting it hurts mom and pop on main street.’
It’s a private company that Silver Lake dropped 250 million into six years ago before growing it into one of the largest web hosting providers in the world.
It’s an investment business on the part of wealthy firms and – presumably – billionaire individuals in business in or around silicon valley.
Here’s how this goes.
If WP Engine fights this unethical pressure and request, the lack of services and the cost to make changes will roll to you and me.
If WP Engine caves, and they pay the extortionary licensing fee, the cost will roll to you and me.
Because when monsters fight, it isn’t monsters that get hurt.
It’s the innocent citizens that live in proximity to them. It’s you. It’s me.
So stay aware.
Watch your commitments and bottom line.
Get ready to help your neighbor, they may need it.
And dont be surprised when big tech lives to fight another day.