Will WordPress remain relevant in the SaaS era? With the direction it's going, and the direction that the SaaS site platforms are going, I'm not so sure.

I'm now using the block editor for my site, but only the 3rd party premium blocks.

I understand why the majority prefers page builders or even non-WordPress platforms like Webflow. The UI is EVERYTHING. It's more important than speed/performance and maybe even more important than functionality.

If the UI sucks, it doesn't matter how great the features are. The majority of the people are not going to use it. Period. Only a small group of enthusiasts will use it.

Even all the biggest WordPress gurus like Troy Dean, Chris Lema, and Adam Preiser use page builders for all their sites. Since they have premium hosting, the bloat from page builders doesn't really matter.

And the SaaS platforms like Webflow, SiteJet, Wix, and SquareSpace are getting increasingly popular.

Why? Because of their UIs, which allow people to artistically design their websites on the front-end exactly as they see it; a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface (unlike Gutenberg).

Gutenberg's UI is just TERRIBLE. I really think the Gutenberg contributors should hold their horses before rushing in with the block-based themes nonsense.

Do they really think that the majority of people are going to edit their whole websites in that clunky as hell, absurdly narrow document view which looks nothing like the front-end so you have to refresh every five seconds?

I don't think so. Only a small group of enthusiasts would do that.

If Elementor goes solo and includes e-commerce and SEO tools, it may very well become the WordPress killer. If I were Ben Pines, I would go for it. And because it would be on its own, websites made with it would have much less bloat.

But it doesn't have to be this way. WordPress CAN have a very good UI and there's a very simple solution to this problem...

It's the Customizer, Stupid!

The customizer is the best part of WordPress. Its UI is way better than Gutenberg, and I really liked how there was a trend to move everything from the dashboard into the customizer so everything would be in one place.

The customizer is also the perfect candidate for a native page builder, and there's a theme/plugin company that already had the right idea for it.

That company is Organic Themes. They made page-building widgets so the customizer acts as a native page builder. When you add a page, you're taken to the customizer so you design your page with those widgets. And the customizer itself doesn't change with extra code added like in Mesmerize and Colibri WP themes.

THIS is the direction WordPress should've taken:
https://organicthemes.com/builder/

The customizer could've become an open-source page builder, spawning a whole industry of widget companies all competing against each other with page-building widgets.

This could've also served as the standardization of plugins; all plugins being made as widgets so you wouldn't have to leave the customizer.

The customizer/widget path would've been a much MUCH simpler way of upgrading WordPress, without needlessly over-complicating things, causing a huge disruption, and making a big mess.

"Keep it simple." "Beauty is in simplicity."

Anyway, Gutenberg blocks have already been created. So I think Gutenberg and the customizer should be merged. It would be really cool if we can add blocks in the customizer. It would make the customizer more inline.

Maybe we can start off by having a block widget be created, so we can add that widget to any spot in the customizer and then click on that spot to open up the blocks menu. Just in the beginning phase. Later on, you should be able to easily add blocks anywhere in the customizer without a widget. Something to think about.

So I think there should be a counter-proposal to the block-based themes proposal, because most people will not want to edit their whole sites in that narrow view and clunky interface. That narrow view is only good for writing articles, not designing pages.

And throwing away the customizer would be a terrible mistake. It would be suicide for WordPress.

So the customizer + blocks = open-source page builder with a great UI. This formula would keep WordPress standing strong in the SaaS era.