Reaction to Cwicly shutting down from a loyal supporter
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- Cwicly shocked everyone when it suddenly closed up shop last week.
I try to make sense of what went down, and why I think this is one of the worst things to happen in the WP community in a long time.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. I always read every single one.
If you thought I said anything interesting, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed to my channel.
And lastly, I also publish a bi-weekly WordPress newsletter, which you can find at newpulselabs.com/newsletter/.
Thanks for watching.
** Sorry for the tinny audio. Not sure what happened there. **
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
00:44 1. My background with Cwicly
01:22 2. What I thought of Cwicly
02:38 3. The announcement
07:38 Was it about the money?
08:49 4. The impact on the Cwicly community
10:44 5. The impact on the WordPress community
11:27 6. Mishandling of responsibility
12:10 7. How it should’ve been handled
14:06 8. What to do next
14:58 9. To Louis and the Cwicly team
15:48 Final thoughts 
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What a brilliant, thoughtful and well-articulated response to this fiasco. Quite rightly emotional, yet rational and balanced. Thanks so much for this, Sunny.
Thanks again for the super kind comments Dave.
P.S. just now realized the audio sounds pretty tin-ny. Not sure if it was a Descript recorder thing or if the gain on my mic was too high 🫠
Great breakdown.
Thanks KG.
Best video on this incident so far. I feel deeply sorry for what you’re going through. Hopefully you’ll find some love back from the web design/development community in future - don’t quit!
Thanks Maxime! Sometimes events like this end up for the best. Has me thinking more about achieving the result vs. obsessing over the tool.
@@NewPulseLabs I can relate that kind of « connection » we feel with the tools we use on daily basis, and the communities built around them. What is happening is sad and unfair. But good vibes will eventually come out from it. Mark my words!
Hope the Cwicly team sees this!
I really hope that if they do, they take it the right way. 🤞
Great discours !
I'm not a Cwicly guy, but I feel concerned about their situation.
From the very 1st video I saw of Louis about Cwily, I felt like Louis was fragile.
They need as devs to be in the "back-end" developing the project and have a guy or a team dedicated to communication in the "front-end" of their business.
Hope they will reactivate the project.
Louis lived and breathed Cwicly. It doesn't surprise me that the negative comments got to him. Really hoping that taking some time away will help him come back refreshed. But I agree, I think having a front-end man/gal to deal with all the social media shiz would be very beneficial.
Yup, the worst course of action. I feel it's still not too late. All he has to do is have a change of heart.
Well said. I'm standing right beside you. I even dropped a line to a Silicon Valley insider whom I follow yesterday to say, "Hey, you need to find somebody to buy this thing with a small, but passionate user-base." Heard right back from the secretary who said she's bringing it to him this upcoming week. We shall see. I gotta say, I feel it in my bones: Cwicly is going to be acquired. Meanwhile, I'm holding ranks right beside you brother.
Love to hear that!
Great job on talking through a difficult topic in a clear, convincing, respectful and bold way. I always appreciate your content. Thank you!
Appreciate the comment Brad!
Thank you for your thoughts. I was often tempted by Cwicly but could never quite bring myself to commit. I can't put my finger on it but there was something not quite right about the setup. The team clearly do not need to sell their product and that might tell us something about what lies at the bottom of this mess.
You are such a great person Sunny. I've never been interested in Cwicly, no longer in Oxygen over a year... However, I saw this video by clicking on the link from your newsletter, which I always wait for - because I like your work very much and I feel that You are such a great person Sunny. Keep your work! Kudos.
Wow, thanks Waldek. This comment made my day.
hi Sunny, my thoughts are exactly like yours. when something abrupt like this happens it feels like talking about it helps us elaborate the situation, and in community we can better manage to support each other emotionally so we can overcome the potential trauma that could lead us to our own bad decision making. so i'm glad you posted this video, because knowing that my decisions moving forward are similar to yours (a person so engaged in the community and dedicated like you are), i feel more secure and strengthened. thank you!
I feel ya. None of us feel great about how this went down. It's really unfortunate.
I feel really sorry for what you are going through, Sunny! The video is so sincere, respectful and well articulated that makes so easy to empathize with you! Don't quit! I am sure the Bricks community will benefit a lot of having a talented guy like you! 😊
Thanks Isaura!
Great video my friend, this sucks. I can’t image breakdance shutting down tomorrow. Keep your head up and keep building.
Thanks brother!
Very thoughtful response video Sunny. You earned a subscriber. Thank you.
Thanks for the sub!
Thanms for this great video. You nailed all my thoughts on this issue and i hope theres some hope left for cwicly in the future.
Thanks for the comment!
Incredible video on this whole thing, brother. Hopefully the team provides more clarity and/or a solution for Cwicly users.
Thanks my dude.
Incredibly well said. 👏
That was an excellent analysis.
Well said Sunny. I can’t imagine going through this kind of torture for a second time. Only recently did I myself make the jump to Bricks from Oxygen. I think everything you said was thoughtful.
I was soo close to making that decision as well 🥲
Great video, Sunny. You already know I share the same sentiments. Don't think I've ever been this emotional about a tech product before.
Thanks Orrett. It was a love triangle I was happy to be a part of.
Thank you Sunny for taking the time to so thoughtfully, respectfully and empathetically express what I'm certain many Cwicly users would have wanted to express, myself included. I sincerely hope that Louis and the Cwicly team find a way to see for themselves how much love there is out "here" for him/them, his/their vision and his/their Herculean efforts to bring that vision to life. Nothing comes even close to the inspired fusion of art and technical mastery that Cwicly brings to the WordPress Community in the most unique and innovative fashion. Let's all take a pause and embrace the prospect that time, rest and reflection will give way to brighter days ahead.
Thanks for bringing the positivity!
I continue to hold onto hope for their return.
Thank you, so true! While still there are a bunch of friends complaining to me about the oxygen 'nightmare', it's far from this total cwicly shut down...great video!
I mean their bug reports probably won't get fixed for a couple of years, but at least they can still submit them.
@@NewPulseLabsYes!!
Well said. Everything you said. And thank you. You earned a subscriber.
Thanks for the sub!
Great video
Thanks G money
Hi Sunny, I can feel your emotions in this incredibly well-balanced take on this complex situation. I didn’t use Cwicly for any projects, but I have always been keeping up with their developments. You’re so right about the trust being broken and us, as the user base, questioning whether to invest in new tools or choosing tools for new projects, keeping in mind whether the tool will be supported in the coming years. We have a responsibility to our clients not to use fly-by-night tools. I hope they work through their difficulties and can give the community members a way forward. Things rarely go as planned, and I hope that they can find a solution that is fair and respectful to their team, developers, users and business owners.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Sherissa. I really hope so too.
I think that everything said is right on the spot Sunny.
A couple of years ago I was considering Oxygen for an enterprise website, but the Angular situation coupled with Breakdance made me take the niche tool card off the table for enterprise builds. I was watching Bricks & Cwicly evolve over time. Trust in niche tools was damaged for me, and frankly this Cwicly situation is the nail in the coffin for me.
What did you end up going with?
Very well said 👍
I am still shocked by the event. I hope all is well with Louis and that he will be back. 😢
Me too man.
The very right words, thank you for representing us like that.
Glad I could encapsulate our collective thoughts.
Really well thought out and articulated. I myself was not a Cwicly user, but I saw a lot of potential there. It's a tough spot and my heart goes out to all the folks who staked their livelihood on Cwicly. Louis seemed like a great guy, and I agree with your comments that it seemed very out of character, so I think something else may have happened in his life that we are all not privy to that led to this decision. It's a sad day to see them go, and also to see the unfortunate collateral damage that will be felt across the WP community at large. I'm a dedicated Bricks user, and unfortunately now it makes me a bit nervous thinking, what's to stop Thomas from deciding to call it quits. I'm not implying he will, but it does make you look over your shoulder with a bit more anxiety. I really hope all that were affected by this can recover from it and move on - I am not directly impacted but I can definitely empathize with those who are. I also hope Louis, his family and his team make it through all this ok, and that maybe there is a way all of this can somehow work out for a positive outcome. Shocked, totally.
Great comment. It may be worthwhile for people to start asking Thomas what his exit plan would be.
"How am I supposed to get excited about building something that might just screw me again." - Bingo...
You say what I think, very balanced! Can't believe that the project will be completely abandoned in the long run. It really makes you wonder why Louis Cwicly doesn't at least sell to an interested party. Such a shame for everyone involved!
Thanks! Yeah, really hope it doesn’t just end up going to the grave.
16:40 that right there... especially for a mostly 1 man show .. people die and get severely sicke,.. so the worst case scenario especially for small teams is crucial
Very nice tribute.
Can we still hope that this is not a eulogy?
Thanks! I would love nothing more… but the clocks are ticking.
Thanks for this incisive video
Thanks for adding a new word to my vocabulary!
I think all Cwicly users deserve the real reason why it shut down out of nowhere. Louis threw all Loyal supporters away.
It's a terrible situation, given how many useful WP tools are built by Independents, and what this means for trust.
I really like the team at Blocksy theme, if you want to continue with Gutenberg.
PS: maybe someone will reach out and offer to take it over. Though it sounds like Cwicly may be too tied to the brain of one genius programmer for that?
I tried to post this video in the forum and the guy just delete it, I cannot just praise the guy for what he have done, he knows he screwed up a lot of people and i think all he cares its about his ego and issues, someone touched a thin fiber, such changes and decisions can't be taken under the blame on emotions alone.
This video is so bizarre.
I use Elementor and chose it because it has wide popularity in the market, it is an established brand, a SAAS model, and the chance of it going out of business is very low.
If you invest your time and money on every shiny new toy that comes in to play, and if things go south, you are to blame, not Cwicly or every other shiny new toy.
You’re right. I am to blame. We should all just use the first thing that comes to market. Now I know for next time!
@@NewPulseLabs Your statement contradicts itself and my comment, a poor take on satire.
You made a bad bet, on a shiny new toy, own it.
The only thing missing from your video and thankfully is that you are not crying.
They completely abandoned the user base because they couldn't handle regular hurdles of business. I don't feel bad whatsoever.
How are you a "long time cwicly user".. when it hasn't even been around a full 2 years?
How do you have a fiancé and wife (wedding site) at the same time?
With all of your statements, you're missing a very important and key thing.. ALL of these 'builders' are just that, builders. You aren't a 'developer'. You're just using a very well coded frontend tool to mimic a 'developer'. Do the actual developers of these builders use tools that mimick developer writing code? The answer is no.
The point is, you want to build 'websites' as a business, you want to assume the title of 'web developer', then study and then apply actual coding languages! Start with basic HTML / PHP and JS. Then choose something more advanced like NextJS, Vue, etc. Then you are beholden to a 'builder' on top of a CMS trying mashup predesigned elements and passing it off as a 'website'.
Cwicly wasn't and isn't the problem, it's your reliance on something that was merely created to mimic something else.. like all of the other builders that you load up with 'plugins' and then spend all of your time debugging just about everything in the generated code, fighting with responsiveness, trying to figure out how to increase your pagespeed and combatting hack attempts while using the world's number one hacker's red apple!
- What constitutes a long time? Is working out for 4 hours a long time? Using something for the life of the product is a long time. This part was 70% a joke anyways.
- Normally you build a wedding website so guests can RSVP BEFORE a wedding?
- Correct, there are different use cases for builders and developers. Many clients, entrepreneurs, and marketing teams want to make changes on the fly. There’s a reason why builders like Elementor, Webflow, Framer, Shopify etc power hundreds of millions websites.
- Do tool companies use hammers to build hammers? Web apps and front-end websites aren’t two of the same.