This pattern of resistance to innovation is remarkably consistent across time. Whether it’s film editors clinging to razor blades or WordPress users defending the classic editor, we see the same human dynamics at play.

What’s fascinating is how quickly the controversial becomes conventional. Tools that faced fierce opposition eventually become the new standard that users later defend against further change.

We’re seeing this exact pattern play out right now with AI and LLM tools. Many content creators and developers are resisting these technologies, focusing on short-term workflow disruptions rather than long-term capabilities. The skilled practitioners feel their expertise being challenged, just as film editors and classic WordPress users once did. It’s great to see the ones, like myself, who embrace the change, explore the tools, and see where it takes you. It’s quite fun.

The lesson seems to be that meaningful innovation often can’t be democratically approved by current experts. Their expertise itself creates attachment to existing workflows. Sometimes leadership means pushing through the initial resistance knowing that, in time, the benefits will become self-evident.

I wonder what WordPress feature released in the near future and met with resistance we’ll all take for granted in five years?

I was among those who strongly resisted Gutenberg. Nowadays I use it every day! But my primary personal blog, which was already almost six years old when it migrated to WordPress 1.2 back in 2004, still uses the classic editor. I enjoy that I have the freedom to do that.

When we talk about open source meaning freedom, this is the kind of thing we mean. Years ago, I was in charge of the CMS for a major academic institution when the company behind that CMS made a gradual and concerted effort to become less-open-source. That CMS didn’t have the ecosystem and community around it that WordPress has, and so no forks took off, and so my employer got locked-in to upgrading to a new version that was mostly-closed-source and was in some ways inferior. Ugh.

(Incidentally, I got them off that CMS: they’re now using a mixture of WordPress and Drupal for most of their systems. Open source won.)

Change isn’t always good. But open source provides the freedom to embrace change in the way that suits you best.

Nice to meet you Snehasish.

I just got the Amazon Audible edition of this in the morning.

Also, I can see we are connected on X now, nice to meet you Prashant bhai.