Matt Mullenweg blogs about the division in WordPress between bloggers and site builders:

Many of the OG developers of WordPress, including myself, tend more towards the blogging side. Writers, photographers, podcasters, journalists, the people for whom a reverse chronological stream on the homepage is the most obvious thing in the world.

This is a disconnect I noticed years ago. So much effort was spent on competing with Squarespace and Wix, WordPress felt bloated for regular bloggers. I’m glad Matt is aware of it.

@manton This is my biggest complaint about WordPress. I’ve been blogging at ConcreteLunch.info for 20 years in a couple of months. Right now there is only one them I actually like (and I’m using it). The rest are bloated, visually confusing, not-accessible, and very difficult to customize for a reasonably adept librarian. ALL I WANT is what I get here on micro.blog or scribbles. A simple page. They don’t do that anymore.

@bloftin2 I’m usually not a fan of different “modes” for the UI, but in this case it might be right for WordPress to have a slimmed-down, default UI.

@manton I understand that to make $$ they have turned it into a content management system. It just kinda suck because it wasn’t like that 20 years ago. Now I am really sorry I didn’t just start a static site blog 20 years ago.

@manton guess who pushed the inferior blogging experience we have now

@manton @bloftin2 One of the aspects hit hardest by the pivot was theming. Most of the repos are filled with themes that look like they are geared towards small businesses. Once you find a good theme that fits a blog, WordPress is actually quite powerful.