New day, new paywalls

• 

  miirosunsetcorner · Member · May 16, 2023 at 6:38 am

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  What the hell, WordPress? I was building a new site this morning and saw that the custom style feature became paid. Why did y’all need to lock it behind a paywall? It’s been free, and it’s always been free, until y’all decided to lock it so that only your paying users could use it. Designing is a BASIC feature of every site.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  miirosunsetcorner · Member · May 16, 2023 at 6:50 am

  • Copy link

  Also, I’m using the Style editor in the “new” editor, not custom CSS. I don’t understand why I have to pay for it because the help page on styles doesn’t say anything about it being paid.

• 

  miirosunsetcorner · Member · May 16, 2023 at 1:44 pm

  • Copy link

  I hope someone from WordPress reads my post and realizes the impact this decision has on users like me. We deserve better than being locked out of basic customization options just because we can’t pay for it.

• 

  dragstor · Member · May 17, 2023 at 6:47 am

  • Copy link

  Hello 👋🏼

  We appreciate the frustration and the feedback!

  The Styles became part of the selected paid plans (Premium, Business, Commerce) in December 2022 since most advanced site customization features are premium features on WordPress.com, and many free plan users do not need any of them.

  Regarding the documentation, it’s promptly updated, and you can see the relevant banner at the top of the Styles guide:

  

  Using Styles

  in WordPress.com Support

  4 min read

  The theme you choose for your site defines many aspects of your site’s design: colors, text size, spacing, and more. You can customize these elements as much as you’d like using Styles. This feature is available on sites with our WordPress.com Premium, Business, and Commerce plans. If your site has one of our legacy plans, it is available on the Pro plan. Video Tutorial Access

  Please let us know if you have any further questions! We’re happy to assist.

• 

  miirosunsetcorner · Member · May 17, 2023 at 8:56 am

  • Copy link

  Since when was the ability to change your site’s colors ”advanced”? It’s one of, if not the, core parts of building your site’s design. Soon enough, if y’all start restricting more design features, everyone who can’t afford Premium will be forced to choose a basic template and not being able to customize it, and every site created by a free user will likely look exactly the same, with no sense of creativity or thought put into it. All that because y’all want to put down more paywalls… I thought Wix was bad, but at least it actually lets you customize way more stuff. And I understand WordPress is geared towards beginners, but this is not the way to get said people to join. And I have a feeling they’ll probably feel the same way as me and leave for better, more versatile platforms that don’t have the most basic of features behind an unnecessary paywall.