The Recommended Hosting page is a fine example on how “we” take sponsored/paid contributors seriously in the sense of creating opportunities for companies to do it. Probably the majority of every hosting company depends on WordPress, the ones i know have around 80% to 90% sites run on WordPress. The question is: do they give back to the WordPress project in the same way as they benefit from WordPress? Compared to plugin companies, their market is next level in terms of recurring revenue. Not everyone needs a particular Premium plugin subscription, but do needs hosting. If every hosting company in US and Europe with more then 80% WordPress sites just only do 2% of the future, imagine how many contibutors can be sponsored. The reason why most hosting companies aren’t doing it is that they don’t care about open source as much as they care about visibility. That’s why the Recommended Hosting page can be a enormous value. This statement is already proven as you take a look at what types of companies sponsors WordCamps. Yes, hosting companies. Then take a look what types of sponsor packages they usually take: yes, the higher packages! It means they are willing to pay for visibility in the ecosystem.

Right now, just these 2 hosting companies on that page is straight up ridiculous. Bring it on country-level, set conditions including sponsoring contributors (yearly renewal), make an official WP Hosting badge (maybe with a year in it), they get a nice (SEO) backlink. I’m pretty sure it can work, more so then pointing the finger every year to our own community about the 5% for the future rule.