In reply to A Adams.

Those are good points. Many people will be needing to make difficult choices, needing to do extra (possibly unpaid) work, or needing to abandon WordPress entirely.

For complex stuff such as ecommerce plugins, if Gutenberg makes a big mess of it, 3rd party stuff may indeed be the best way out. It's ironic, because from where I'm sitting, the blocks approach is taking a cue from the popular non-code builders out there. At that point, the question becomes, why not just use the builders instead if you don't need massive customization? I've already had some previous clients go in that direction.

Of course the powers-that-be must have considered that. With a name as audacious as Gutenberg, I figure this will be a big deal. I wonder if they have decided to make a cleaner break with the past than usual. Be bold, move forward faster, and make more of a fork than an update. If they lose people, that's the cost of progress.

I was hoping that Gutenberg would remain a plugin that can be turned off if a site is ruined by it. But it doesn't sound to me like that will be the case for long.

On the plus side, there are loads of CMS systems out there, many of them excellent. Having experience with many of them puts me in a better position than most if I need to use tools besides WordPress. Others will have more pain than I will, I'm afraid, whether they're non-tech site owners or web firms that use nothing but WordPress.