The WP community has it's own spot among the great technologies of the decade- and now spanning into another. "Great Technologies" will generally, if not always, be defined by usability.

Consider that WP has developed along a path of usability as well as technical excellence (recently) where v3.2 turned the corner into 3.3+. The point here is not how awesome WP is but the difference between usability and adoption, and these are not estranged numbers- they have a strong relationship.

I believe that some serious issues in the overall community focus and presentation of themes needs to be addressed. It's about the usability nobody is really talking about. It's the elephant, rhino, and T-rex in the room by now, and it isn't that the WP community has failed to produce an amazing piece of technology. Hell, it's a work that reminds me of the Cathedral's of the Middle Ages- truly awesome.

Yet there needs to be a greater vision about the... well... business application and whether the medium has met any usability requirements in this regard, because even as free software, we don't really want this to be a fad that dies out.

Drawing on a very poignant passage above- one issue is that some reasonable way to progressively educate this "average client" who doesn't seem to get shortcodes simply needs to happen to sustain WP. It is not really the client's job to create the education. It's their job to learn. We (meaning you & I & everyone in this industry who actually cares about a sustainable future) must not only grow and develop to our taste and satisfaction. At the end of the day the consumer pays our way- whether they understand shortcodes or not.

Yes there are a lot of blogs out there, but the real growth of WP is within the Solopreneur/Entrepreneur and small business sector, and all of us including WP Core serves the consumers (end-users) regardless of who the middleman is or how many, er, middlepeople there are. That is the focus that is so terrifically lost in this. Who is serving the business owner who must actually make profit of some type to continue.

To serve these entities, to serve B2B and B2C interests, when it comes to websites and web presence a significant amount of customization is required - - and to that end I'd much rather revamp and build an Elegant Theme than a Woo Theme any day. I charge 25% extra to deal with Woo (or when handling Microsoft for that matter) just to compensate for the aggravation and headaches. (yes I'm naming names because otherwise this is just a rant).

My point is one that would be lengthy to illustrate, but the headline about the difference between where the theme industry is vs. where I believe it would benefit everyone to be has to do with the problem of specialization vs. integration, and the fact that very few themes will work for anyone right out of the box.

If one is designing a photography theme for more than one client, it's about more than what style photo gallery will be used. These 2 photographers, for example, will have different business models, and while they will of course want different photo galleries, in reality they could hire a designer to tweak it any way they'd like, and this cost will be straightforward. What they can't do is integrate the XYX plugin with the Membership module with the Subscriber form with the payment segment with the 3rd party email list management service unless they pay someone like me (and these costs are not at all straightforward). Unless our industry starts conceiving tools to address real needs it's done. I call doing business a real need, and there are plenty of professional bloggers who agree with me.

Again I'm talking business models, and the reason that 98% of websites, and 95% of small business owners never see black on the bottom line is precisely because their business model is underserved- and by underserved I mean by technology. Most of it is pointless, but it wouldn't have to be if it began with the right intent.

When it comes to the technology or web presence that is supposed to serve a business model, the lack of education is frightening, and yet if one attempts to get the education from a reasonable survey of our industry, do you see that a reasonably intelligent and actually dedicated person gets a fair shake? No way, you and I both know that people are wasting their time and money en masse. People are being sold a $50 share in the Brooklyn Bridge Theme and the $100 DIY Marketing. Most gamblers lose less money than business owners do on their websites.

I am going to also speak to the ignorance of nearly an entire industry who does not understand the first thing about SEO when people believe very conveniently that Yoast's SEO plugins are going to get them results. I have put sites on the front page of Google in relevant keyword searching without actually using keywords or meta descriptions, and while I would never want to seriously market a site without such tools for greater wins and deeper penetration. - these things are just icing on the cake, they are not the cake at all, and they have not been since 2010.

Yet in the industry people believe that this is all so vitally important. It's like the token cross that Dracula whisks away before taking a long drink. At least Yoast doesn't charge for it, although he should, because it's a great product (that I use all the time, because I do like Icing on my cake). BUT there are a lot less worthy products out there making bank $25-$100 at a time. That's what I find disgusting because it perpetuates ignorance.

The group must organize to begin looking at this market as needing more service than just usable code. We need marketing meme's and we need people beginning to talk about real-people language (aka advertising jargon such as "artificial intelligence" brands a much bigger concept), and the community will thrive in a much bigger way.

As long as this is I haven't said it all, or specified everything I could. I hope these couple and small examples catch some kindling somewhere because this is hugely important at a time like this. There isn't a great CMS written with Node yet, and I'm thinking out-loud here... would everyone like to start marching to beat of a different drum in a couple years, or instead band together to understand how to make something that's already useful in the real world sustainable?