I don’t get the hate that WordPress.com gets. I mean I kinda do, but it’s disappointing. They are a very good host. The lower tiers are somewhat limited, but it ends up creating a better experience for everyone involved. If you want to use plugins and other features, the higher tiers like Business and Commerce are actually pretty damn cheap compared to the competition while not limiting you to a certain number of visits or whatever. Performance is top notch. It’s easier to get started compared to most other hosts. This price+performance+ease advantage is why WordPress.com gets so much bad mouthing from competitors in the ecosystem.

We live in an era of comfort and abundance, so every day there is an “outrage” over some or other non-issue. WordPress.com could certainly point to the .org as the canonical source, but other than that there is no problem here. This doesn’t hurt plugin developers in any way.