In reply to Matt.

Scott,

I think it's more revealing that you try to portray my disagreement with what you said as an "attack" and an "obsession." It's even more revealing that you want to use those words when your previous contribution clearly misinterpreted Andreas's comments.

The problem with what you say in your latest comment is that you are relying on a simplistic analogy. If you want to treat WordPress as a commodity, then you at least need to distinguish wordpress.com from wordpress.org.

WordPress.com may well be largely focused on direct-to-consumer selling, but self-hosted WordPress (i.e. wordpress.org) is a very different beast. In that respect, WordPress is a bit like Home Depot.

While Home Depot provides stuff for both homeowners and service providers, for the big ticket items it is much more interested in meeting builders' expectations. Those builders are Home Depot's equivalent of WordPress developers, and Home Depot takes extra care of them. That's what wordpress.org needs to be doing with third-party developers.

Home Depot knows that its focus on builders doesn't mean that end-users get overlooked or ignored. Quite the contrary. If the builders's expectations are met, then homeowners will get the benefit of better construction and remodeling projects. WordPress could learn a lot from organizations like Home Depot.

So listening to third-part developers is precisely what wordpress.org should be doing. End-users like me will be happy to reap the benefits.