Gutenblock is just the beginning. What I think is happening with WordPress right now, is a "soft fork".

The marketing steering committee has decided to leave the great unwashed to the Wixes and the Squarespaces of this world, and reposition the platform as a high-end CMS, for creatives and techies, to use as a social content marketing, design and communication tool. Not a business website. Not, that is, unless you are a theme designer, ad agency etc.

This emerging market is html/css competent and design savvy, so doesn't need to be spoon-fed, nor need their hands holding. And since VIP and Woo are bringing in the lolly, it means WordPress is quite well off, which is more than can be said for the great unwashed, who even now, don't know the difference between a post and a page, and still can't use TinyMCE to best effect, let alone edit html.

Gutenblocks were never for them. And never will be.

But on the bright side, this might well be the first time in its illustrious history that WordPress has consciously moved forward without a huge chunk of technical debt hanging round its neck. But of course, they can't come out and say so, or there would be a fearsome gnashing of teeth, feigned social conscience, and market/profit eroding infighting in the ecosystem.

So what I think is, WordPress is quietly "forking off" into the future, and leaving the old WordPress Mk I, and all its competition issues, and technical debt behind.

Far safer to do it that way round than come out and tell the truth, and try to sell the idea of a WordPress Mk II to everybody. I just wish they would hurry up and get on with it, because trying to work with this Gutenblock plugin is a pain in the petutie, right now, for a semi-techie like me.