Ask HN: What will the WordPress meltdown mean for Automattic's other products? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What will the WordPress meltdown mean for Automattic's other products?

36 pointssnackernews19 comments

All of the coverage and opinions I’ve read have focused on the longer term impact to the WordPress ecosystem itself.

I’m an enthusiastic longtime paying user of Pocket Casts and Day One.

Now that employees are leaving in droves (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41872046) I fear for both.

Pocket Casts is the only podcast app that has ever clicked for me.

I’ve invested significant time and personal writing and media into Day One journals. Privacy concerns aside, it’s an app and platform I enjoy using.

How many of the employees fleeing Automattic couldn’t care less about WordPress but are the product and technical expertise behind these other products?

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Consider your personal threat model.

Due to his conduct, I consider Matt a bad actor, at this point. Combine that with other perhaps dubious allegations in other lawsuits[1] against Matt.

If I were using SimpleNote, I'd question the privacy of my notes. The notes aren't encrypted[2]. I'd have concerns if my notes have been/will be grepped through for "juicy" content, or if I were to publicly criticize the owner, embarrassing details be made public in some fashion.

Same for Day One. I'd stop using it immediately and cut my losses. Obligatory link[3].

I don't use any of Automattic's products except WordPress, but previously, if I were going to use a cloud-based notes app, I'd have probably used SimpleNote, based on my previous impression of Matt as this stoic do-gooder.

This is a good lesson in that you don't really know the real person behind these public personas. Do not make critical decisions based on these personas.

1. https://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io (I have zero affiliation with this site)

2. https://simplenote.com/help/#encryption

3. https://dayoneapp.com/guides/day-one-sync/end-to-end-encrypt...

Good products become lagging behind with times and then goto live as average or below average products at Automattic.

Pocket Casts, Simplenote, DayOne. All of these had deteriorated before going to Automattic and then deteriorated some more.

In case someone is looking for alternatives on Mac/iOS:

Simplenote —> FS Notes (apple only; foss). You can use the app for free on Mac and can compile on iOS. But it's really good so I bought and there is NO SUBSCRIPTION (not yet at least :D). Very responsive, active, and prompt dev https://fsnot.es

Pocket Casts —> Overcast (yes, with the latest “upgrade” royal screw ups), or even Apple Podcasts (I hate OEM apps but there are not really great ones out there) - overcast has an yearly subscription (though almost everything is free - even when I was paying I had the ad enabled as it was a good way to find some nice shows - right now I am not paying because dev has really effed up and I am waiting but still using along with Apple Podcasts). The dev is exact opposite of FS Notes dev :P (and is kinda famous I guess) http://overcast.fm

DayOne —> I gave up looking for journal apps (last non-retarded one I had found was Dyrii but it shutdown). I had stopped using DayOne when it went subscription based. I just use the notes app and paper notebook now. https://www.google.com/search?q=stationery+stores+near+me :D

I've been looking to migrate away from https://simplenote.com to something else and I've been dragging my feet. However, what's happened in the past 2 weeks with the CEO was the push I needed to resume looking for another solution.

I've landed on Obsidian.md. I actually prefer Simplenote over Obisidian, because Simplenote feels smoother and the online web app is great, but I've decided that having more control over my own data is more important so Obsidian it is.

If you start missing collaboration in Obsidian, check out the Relay plugin. A lot of folks are compelled by the offline-first capabilities of Obsidian but then find that they eventually want a shared folder to collaborate with a colleague, friend, or partner.

(disclaimer: I'm the author)

Obsidian is not perfect, but IMHO it’s the best note-taking application out there.

I gather that most of the people leaving are on the Wordpress side rather than the other side, at least in the first wave. But yeah, given the way things seem to be going, I would not be getting too attached to any of their products.

Exporting my Day One right now, I don't want my data around an unstable CEO.

I was helping a friend look at journaling apps a few months ago, and one reason I hesitated at suggesting Day One was because it had been acquired by Automattic.

I ended up suggesting Diarly [1], but I think said friend went with Apple's native Journal app. I really hope Apple eventually releases macOS and iPad versions of it.

[1] https://diarly.app

It's indeed very concerning. I also use Pocket Casts as well as Day One, and both have been exceptional apps which are integral to my daily routines and well-being. I certainly hope for the best, but… shrug

Oh no, didn’t realize PC was at risk here. Crikey, that’s bad news.

I'm worried about https://beeper.com

80% of the Twitter workforce was fired. The first month was kind of shaky, but at least from my point of view the platform has been pretty stable.

I of course can't say for sure, but I imagine most of Automattics products will continue running though maybe with a much lower frequency of updates.

Anecdotally, I'm a near daily user and have noticed the platform has significantly more latency, a massive uptick in spam as well as strange / intermittent bugs.

I think it could be boiling frog syndrome.

For the last decade I have always signed up for Twitter, used it for a few months, deleted the account and stayed away for months/years and then returned. This is largely because I get addicted to Twitter.

My last return to Twitter, a few months ago, was the first time since the firings. And it is awful. Glitches all over the place. Bots all over the place.

This is the longest I’ve had a Twitter account because I have absolutely no reason to delete it since I have no desire to use it.

Also, I don’t use Twitter for politics at all. It’s almost entirely for sports/tech/science so it’s not a partisan thing.

All that being said, I think it’s absolutely true that Twitter could have reduced its workforce somewhat. Like every other tech company they had massively over hired during the pandemic and all of them have had deep layoffs. And Twitter was the poster child of “why does tech company X need so many employees”. But even then the impact of the cuts are very evident to me at least.

> Twitter was the poster child of “why does tech company X need so many employees”.

I think Twitter and Reddit share that title.

Reddit has something like 2000 employees, yet their platform's availability has never been amazing, and new web UI and the official mobile apps are both unusable. What do they do all day?

Twitter has been anything but stable; though I'd blame most of that on Musk rather than the layoffs.

As a regular Twitter user, I kinda disagree with this perception. Twitter has objectively become slower and more bugs have been introduced as well.

Sorry I'm out of the loop these days with most tech news. I checked your link but I guess I don't really get it.

Can someone quickly explain what's going on with WP? Thx

Like you I was out of the loop. This was a good catchup https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shoptalk/id493890455?i...

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