"[Gutenberg] ignores the fact that not everyone who uses WordPress is a blogger"

But everyone using WordPress.com *is* a blogger.

And that's Automattic's target audience. It's always been the vision. And to be completely fair to Automattic, it/they never pretended otherwise. Let's look at what Matt wrote on 27th August

We have challenges (user frustrations with publishing and customizing, competition from site builders like Squarespace and Wix) and opportunities (the 157 million small businesses without sites, aka the next big market we should be serving)

Who is the "We"? Is it WordPress or WordPress.com? It's both, but if you're building data driven sites, sites that utilise the REST API, sites that utilise a lot of "non-content" data, sites that use the method API etc then "user frustrations with publishing and customizing, competition from site builders like Squarespace and Wix" don't ring true for you, because that's not your market!

Also, and lets be pretty blunt here, it's the end of 2017 so "the 157 million small businesses without sites" are going to want something very simple to start with!

To see the extent of the issue, lets look at what GB design lead Tammie wrote just last week:

I think it’s important to look at what in the future metaboxes will be used for. What are the cases (if any) that would not be converted to blocks? Do all metaboxes have to work on mobile? Is there even an alternative interface that we haven’t explored?

A lot of people have taken pot shots at Tammie for the "(if any)" addition, but they are missing the point. Tammie, an automattician, is thinking about MetaBoxes as Content. Because in the automattic / .com world, where WP is used to create beautiful and wonderful "blogging+" style websites, MetaBoxes are content.

That's a huge disconnect though for all the developers who use MetaBoxes as data-stores and data-connections. While some of that data may end up on screen as content, very little of it does, or is actually used as display logic! This is especially true of of Custom Post Types / Custom Taxonomies etc. Y'know, data, logic but not necessarily content. Rarely is that content freely editable by a user. It's almost never a 'write what you want, add html, go nuts, here's TinyMCE, and bob with sports' post field.

If you build data-centric websites/apps with WordPress, with simple logic gates, then the Guttenberg era of WordPress is not going to be for you. Because it was never designed for you, because you're not the target audience. And that's ok!

I know that I've annoyed people for years for saying that WordPress is amazing at "Blogging+". That people have read that and decided I was secretly meaning it wasn't a 'real' CMS. Which of course it is.

But since WP2.8/9 (unofficially) and WP3.0/1 (officially) we've been using Custom_Post_Types and Custom_post_Taxonomies as Custom_Data_Types. Which was never their intended use! Sure it worked, clunky, but worked. (As an aside: that's why we got "Custom Post Formats" hastily rammed into WP3.0/3.1 instead of creating standards for CPTs, to combat bloggers moving to Tumblr. Because, y'know, bloggers being .com's target audience).

That's not to say that people using WP in this manner are wrong, or doing anything bad. Or that WP can't handle this sort of thing. Caveat Caveat Caveat - must not piss off the fanboys.

I tried to explain this to someone after my keynote over the weekend. WordPress is like a Tesla. It's slick, looks nice, you get to choose a lot of options when you buy it. Going from your old car, to your new Tesla makes you look modern. Frankly, it's awesome. But if your requirements were to have a vehicle that could go 300 miles on a single tank, or fit in camping equipment, or go over rough terrain, then the Tesla ain't going to do the job (as well). Sure you could fit different tyres. You could go trips via charging stations. You could hitch a trailer to the back. But at some stage, you're using the tool in a way it wasn't designed for. At some stage, someone at Tesla will remove the tow bar at the back, and you won't be able to pull the trailer anymore.

And that's what's happening here.

WordPress has always always always used the 80/20 rule. And ".com" has never been in the "20" since 2010. For all the wonderful and imaginative ways that WP has been used over the years, it's always been about fulfilling it's vision - Democratizing Publishing. Enabling those without, or little, web dev skills to get on the web in the way they want. To have their website, with their data, the way they want. That's a beautiful thing. Truly.

As long as you build websites in the Wix/Weebly/Squarespace market.

Which you all do, right?