In reply to Paul Lacey.

The issue at hand is who is the "user-base"?

WordPress' mission has long been focused on democratizing web publishing for as many people as possible, and Gutenberg quite clearly is an important step in service of this mission. So, while there may be many developers who are not happy with this new direction, they are FAR outweighed (1000x? 10,000x? more?) by the many who just want an easy to use platform. Gutenberg is still going through its growing pains, and perhaps they could have handled things differently through this transition. But it is quite clearly making WordPress a far more accessible tool for a FAR larger user-base.

WordPress itself destroyed much of the print media industry, which probably supplanted other things previously. Artisans of all stripes lost their trade and livelihood to industrialization. Should these things not have happened because there were entrenched interests who were hurt? Greater efficiency and accessibility tends to just be the natural way of the world.

Even things like Walmart or Amazon are "good" for the world insofar as people benefit from better prices and time savings. And while they are the source of plenty of knock-on human and environmental effects, I don't see how Gutenberg is anything but a positive for the common good.