From a technical sense there are plenty of alternatives, even similarly disliked platforms like medium or wix.
The problem is none of them are interested in turning a basic CMS into a wasteland of kitchen sink functionality that aims to turn blogging software into the ultimate web swiss army knife.
People are happy to build blog software, but that's not what WordPress' customer base wants. They want professional services in the form of a grab bag of sketchy plugins. Nobody's going down that path again.
If the goal were simply "let's build a better blogging platform" or "let's build a better storefront platform" or "let's build a better music venue website platform" there might be a receptive audience. But the goal is "let's build all three in one and also 500 other use cases." Who would see that as a compelling goal in 2022.
The problem is none of them are interested in turning a basic CMS into a wasteland of kitchen sink functionality that aims to turn blogging software into the ultimate web swiss army knife.
People are happy to build blog software, but that's not what WordPress' customer base wants. They want professional services in the form of a grab bag of sketchy plugins. Nobody's going down that path again.
If the goal were simply "let's build a better blogging platform" or "let's build a better storefront platform" or "let's build a better music venue website platform" there might be a receptive audience. But the goal is "let's build all three in one and also 500 other use cases." Who would see that as a compelling goal in 2022.