In reply to The End Goal is Simple.

First of all, thank you very much Justin for another wonderful article!

"The final idea is for people to have these Lego-like blocks and to be able to craft beautiful designs which are fast without the need to buy plugins, install plugins, bloatware, hire coders, developers or designers."

I wholeheartedly disagree with that idea.

Just like in all other fields of work, every single aspects of web development requires a huge amount of knowledge and skills – from design, coding, and information architecture to content structuring, data analysis, marketing... you name it. So in order to get things done reliably you will need the help of experts, i.e. people with the required knowledge and skillset.

The need for real expertise is by no means a "problem" that needs to be fixed. On the contrary, it is the basic premise of doing and kind of business professionally. Telling people that one day everybody is going to be able to do everything they need all by themselves without the support of specialists is more than just naive – it is completely ridiculous.

But you know what? Truth doesn't sell.

That's why websites like Wix, Jimdo, and perhaps WordPress tell you a different story. It usually goes like this:

"With our product, you will be able to create beautiful, fast, solid, technically reliable websites all by yourself. You will be able to run a successful online business without having to pay anyone in return. It will all be super simple, enjoyable, and fun. Pay us a little, and you won't have to pay for expensive specialists. For 9,99 bucks a month, you will be your own designer slash coder slash web developer slash product manager slash marketing analyst slash whatever."

Let's be honest. We all know that this is never, ever going to work. Never. Ever. Because the complexities of designing stuff, coding, marketing, managing products, projects, and customers, and all other possible fields of expertise, are not simply vanishing into thin air because some web service enables you to pile up a set of design components (i.e. blocks) or templates on top of each other so that at some point you will have a "beautiful design".

Sure, the result will certainly be some sort of a website or whatever you might want to call it. But will the result be able to compete with that of real experts? Well, only if you leave aspects like quality, uniqueness, or reliability out of the equation – aspects that are fundamental for maintaining a successful online business.

There is no way that a DIY approach will enable anyone non-professional to compete with the professional works of designers, programmers, marketing strategists and what not. Even though the story sells, it will always remain just that – a story. Nice, entertaining, but fictional.

People will not become web designers over night just because they can now move around content blocks in their WP editor.

No matter what you do, it takes a lot of time, sweat, and experience to become a professional. All those DIY stories are just trying to get people to subscribe to the illusion that they could somehow just magically skip the difficult parts. Those people will try, fail, try, fail again, try again, fail once more, get really frustrated, and finally do the only sensible thing that's left for them to do:

They hire a professional to get the job done.