I don’t see this as Automattic trying to take a piece of the freelance market. Instead, it’s like they recognize that people need more onboarding help now. Now more than before.

“It indicates that WordPress still has a long road ahead before it is truly an approachable tool for beginners embarking on their first site building experience.”

Irony about this is, go back 10 years, or so. WordPress was THE tool for absolute beginners to make their first site. And almost free. Anyone could do it, and was doing it. Not just blogs, but online shops (remember WP eCommerce plugin), forums, sites for selling services and courses. They did this all with the classic editor.

WordPress used to be easy for beginners, and it no longer is. Automattic is trying to fix this by this new onboarding attempt.