AI platforms like Lovable and Replit are charging monthly fees for features WordPress provides free. Jason Lemkin notes this marks a shift where users pay for capabilities that were once free or cheap, similar to how ChatGPT now charges for services Google once offered at no cost.
AI is getting us to pay for a lot of what we used to get for free. So I was reading this the other day, but I think it was Jason Lemkin that made this point. But basically, if you look at Lovable, you look at Replit, you're basically paying $20, $200 a month or whatever versus what used to be free, which is WordPress, right? So I think it's going to take some time. I do think WordPress will eventually quote unquote become dethroned or won't be the king in the space anymore because they power 40% of the web right now still, right? Websites. I think that's going to continue to go down because people are now willing to pay For what used to be free. And that's, that's again, you look at Lovable and Replit, like that is happening now, right? So Jason Lemkin, WordPress powers 40% of the web. Lovable and Replit are targeting that market and more, but they get to charge you $25 a month and for every token you use. WordPress in its most basic form is free outside of hosting. And your argument is it's not free because you do have to find developers and people to figure out what to set up.
Yeah, and even with the plugins and all that kind of stuff, if any business running on WordPress, majority of them that I talk to, when I say majority, I'm talking about like 99 out of 100, pay people to manage their WordPress, to design, create plugins, tweak code, all that stuff.
Now, to continue here, much as, much as ChatGPT gets to charge for what Google provides for quote unquote free, Lovable and Replit get to charge for what WordPress provides in many cases for free or very cheap. That adds up to a lot of money very quickly. AI is getting us to pay for a lot of what we used to get for free, for more value, no doubt, but a lot more than what we used to.
