On WordPress.com and Bitcoin

Asides

There’s been some controversy and discussion about the fact that WordPress.com no longer support Bitcoin in our new checkout flow on signup. (It’s still there in some other flows.)

Since there has been a lot of discussion about it, I wanted to share directly some of the answers I had to Grace’s follow-up questions, since I’m not sure if they’ll be published and if they are it probably won’t be in their entirety.

In regards to your future plans for the currency, is bitcoin support definitely returning or is that just a possibility at this point?

We’re big fans of Bitcoin and hope to support it again in the future, for all of the reasons that we originally supported it in 2012, which you can read about here:

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

Is there anything that will influence the outcome of this decision?

No, it is simply a matter of development resources, which are especially scarce for us right now as we’re trying to keep up with growth.

You mention that bitcoin has low volume compared to other payment methods, has this always been the case? Has its volume share changed over time?

The volume has been dropping since launch, in 2014 it was only used about twice a week, which is vanishingly small compared to other methods of payment we offer. We supported Bitcoin for philosophical reasons, not commercial ones.

What are the key aims of your checkout process changes?

Our goals are twofold: to refactor the code behind it which has parts that are over five years old and has grown very complex, and to make it faster and easier for people to buy our services.

When you first launched bitcoin payments WordPress’ blog post praised it as an inclusive payment method for those who cannot use PayPal. Do you worry that these people will now be excluded from the platform?

Of course, but either that number of people turned out to be smaller than we expected or they found other ways to pay. Since it’s so few people overall I’m happy to extend people’s subscription for a year, as I offered in your comments section.

What does being a ‘big believer’ in bitcoin mean to you?

I believe Bitcoin or some other blockchain-like system will be the basis of the majority of financial transactions in the future, from small remittances to multi-billion dollar corporate acquisitions. I think transaction costs should follow Moore’s law, and I don’t think we’re going to get there with the centralized gateways that currently account for the overwhelming majority of transactions. I also personally hold Bitcoin, I’m an advisor to Stellar.org, and my friends make fun of me for bringing up Bitcoin and the blockchain in unrelated conversations.

The bitcoin option still appears on the ‘WP Admin’ screen but not on ‘My Upgrades’. Is this part of the phase out, or likely to stay this way?

That’s on the old code base, and will be available for a short while if any current Bitcoin subscribers want to renew while the option is still available.

Find three hobbies you love: one to make you money, one to keep you in shape, and one to be creative.

I’m not sure the provenance of this quote, but I read it and it really resonated with me, and I’ve found myself repeating it frequently.

Hey guys! I found a good comment on Youtube. Documenting here for posterity, from vTxTobi:

Top 5 rappers:
1. Kendrick Lamar
2. K.dot
3. Guy in second verse of Control
4. Short dude in TDE
5. The good kid in a mad city

(I added the links.) The joke is all of those refer to Kendrick Lamar, so was laugh-out-loud funny. It was on Kendrick’s powerful and controversial new Blacker the Berry track. So congrats to vTxTobi for writing the only decent comment I’ve read on Youtube in years. 🙂

One theory I have is that there’s some secret “developer full-time employment act” that means these programmers have to do something even if it’s just replicating work that’s already been done. Kind of like New Jersey where every gas station is full serve (that had to be some full employment gambit back in the day).

Sounds like something that could be written today about Vox, Buzzfeed, Gawker, or any of the quixotic CMS projects at Washington Post, NY Times, Conde Nast, et al, but it was actually written in 2007.

Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious; Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, “Why would you be vague?,” arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: “You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.” Ive was furious, but came to agree. “It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,” he said. He lamented that there were “so many anecdotes” about Jobs’s acerbity: “His intention, and motivation, wasn’t to be hurtful.”

Your one #longread today should be the New Yorker’s profile of Jonathan Ive by Ian Parker. This anecdote resonated with me from the time I (poorly) did design for a living, and how much patience and stoicism are part of the job when working with a deciding stakeholder, often known as a client:

Bob Mansfield, a former senior hardware engineer at Apple, who is now semi-retired, recently described the pique that some colleagues felt about Ive’s privileged access. As he put it, “There’s always going to be someone vying for Dad’s attention.” But Mansfield was grateful for Ive’s cool handling of a C.E.O. who was “not the easiest guy to please.” Mansfield’s view was “Jony puts up with a lot, and, as a result of him doing it, people like me don’t have to.”

This also made me giggle.

Brunner is proud of the Beats brand, but it took him time to adjust to a design rhythm set as if for a sneaker company: “Originally, I hated it—‘Let’s do a version in the L.A. Lakers’ colors!’ ” He laughed. “ ‘Great. Purple and yellow. Fantastic.’ ”

Check out the entire thing.

What I Miss and Don’t Miss About San Francisco

Essays

A few months ago I was chatting with John Borthwick, who had just returned from a trip to San Francisco. I asked him how the city was doing as if he were a traveler who had visited someplace exotic — “How is it over there?” (As an investor he probably sees the crazier side of the city, since part of his job is looking at hundreds of companies, the vast majority of which will fail, and trying to pick a few winners.)

Despite getting near-daily meeting requests, I don’t currently have any plans to visit San Francisco. I was there in June for a few days for Foo Camp and for drinks with the artist Tom Marioni. I returned for WordCamp San Francisco in October, and again a few weeks ago for Scoble’s 50th birthday party and a board meeting. But the couple-times-a-year rhythm seems to be enough for me. I’m enjoying the distance a bit, in fact.

There has been plenty written about the bubble culture in SF right now, including on the antitech movement that never really took off. It’s a topic I already blogged about in 2013. But I was curious to unpack my own thoughts about being away from it all.

What I don’t miss:

  • Too many meetings — every possible company is there, and everyone wants to meet.
  • High prices for everything, from groceries to cocktails. Not even going to talk about the real estate market and rentals.
  • It takes forever to get across the city, even though it’s only 7 miles.
  • The public transit, while workable, pales in comparison to other places like NYC.
  • The weather isn’t bad, until you drive to Palo Alto or Marin and notice how much nicer it is there. (Or take a one-hour flight to Los Angeles or San Diego.)
  • This is anecdotal, but I feel like cell phone service is terrible, especially for making calls. Calls are unintelligible and drop frequently. I think this is why everyone texts.

I don’t have any problem with the social scene; SF might be tech-heavy, but it’s fairly easy to get out of the tech bubble. Many forget that San Francisco is home to a ton of people working for non-profits, in fashion, finance, bio-tech, art, and music.

What I miss, deeply: the people. Some of my favorite people, professionally and personally, are in the Bay Area, and that’s the thing that will draw me back someday. I’m lucky that I can catch up with folks when they travel, like Jane or Tony in New York or Om in Italy. Of course the Automattic headquarters is there, along with some great colleagues, but I can also catch up with them at meetups.

I miss how much technology permeates the culture there, from billboards to services like Uber or Postmates (or Munchery or Spoonrocket) that today seem like conveniences, but will be the basis of something very meaningful down the line. You can feel like you’re living in the future there. Internet speeds seem to be getting better, too —  local ISPs like Webpass and Monkeybrains are leading the way, but even my Comcast account there delivers 120mbps.

I miss being able to run along the water, and the close proximity to lots of beautiful nature areas (granted I didn’t take much advantage of those when I was still around). The quality of light is really nice — when you can see it. Restaurants, though tending toward pricey, offer great ingredients and quality.

Finally, you can’t deny it’s a city of hustlers. This tweet has since been deleted, but you get the idea:

https://twitter.com/closetclicks/status/500345852352008193

Tom Ford’s 15 Things

Design

For the 15th anniversary of Vogue.com noted fashion designer Tom Ford made a list of 15 things that every man should have, which are as follow:

  1. A sense of humour.
  2. A daily read of a newspaper.
  3. A sport that you love and are good at.
  4. Tweezers.
  5. A good cologne that becomes a signature.
  6. A well cut dark suit.
  7. A pair of classic black lace up shoes.
  8. A smart blazer.
  9. The perfect pair of dark denim jeans.
  10. Lots of crisp white cotton shirts.
  11. Always new socks and underwear, throw away the old ones every 6 months.
  12. A classic tuxedo.
  13. A beautiful day watch with a metal band.
  14. The perfect sunglasses.
  15. Perfect teeth. If you don’t have them, save up and get them fixed.

A pretty good list, though I would replace the newspaper with Circa, and I must confess I’m not sure sure what #4 the tweezers are for.

Om also has Tom Ford’s 5 tips for a modern gentleman.

Seattle’s decision to throw the ball at the goal line with 20 seconds to go in last night’s Super Bowl was a costly one. But in the long run, it won’t be nearly as costly to the rest of the United States as the National Football League (NFL) itself.

Every year, the NFL rakes in around $9.5 billion in revenue. Its commissioner, Roger Goodell, meanwhile, has an annual salary of $44 million. And while those numbers might make sense for any big business, the NFL isn’t a business – not technically, at least.

According to the Public Law 89-800, it’s a 501(c)6 tax-exempt nonprofit. That’s right, a nonprofit. In other words, the NFL, one of the most lucrative organizations in all of sports, is subsidized by you and me the taxpayers.

From The Real NFL Scandal. If you’re curious, here’s a list of other notable 501(c)(6) organizations.