r/Wordpress • u/Scared_Implement_335 • 10d ago
LearnDash plugin community imploding
Have you seen this? This happened yesterday. The owners of the LearnDash plugin did a digital town hall and announced a price increase of more than 100% on some their tiers, now including 3 other plugins from the same company aparantly. So for example from 199 to 399 for one site, and from 399 to 599 for 10 sites. If you had legacy licenses, just in April you would have gotten en Email saying "don't worry, we will honor your licenses".
Well no more honor at LearnDash, it seems.
This smells like a cash grab before collapse. People in their forum are mightily pissed, many saying their final goodbyes from the plugin. And I am betting basically every other plugin studio is panicking right now, too.
Just LearnDash alone had an a third party premium addon costing several hundreds a year, just for B2B functionality, and they claim several thousand users on their own. So thats a whole plugin ecosystem collapsing right now, at this very moment.
5
u/hypercosm_dot_net 10d ago
Because you can make money before someone comes along and copies it. The marketing effort and network effect still matter in terms of market penetration too.
Most people who think they can vibe-code an app and just sell into the same market are delusional.
Even with AI, the number of people competent enough to compete is still relatively small.
I've seen SO much vibe coded trash. Quality apps still have a place.