This post summarizes a conversation with Luke Carbis on the current state and future of the WordPress plugin ecosystem — particularly how AI, discoverability, ethics, and governance intersect.
Who is speaking
Luke Carbis is a long‑time WordPress contributor: plugin developer and entrepreneur, release lead, WordCamp organiser and member of the Plugin Review Team. He recently presented at WordCamp Asia proposing practical changes to make the plugin directory safer, fairer and better suited to the AI era.
The problem: plugin deluge and discovery
In the last year the plugin directory has seen a dramatic rise in new submissions, driven largely by AI‑assisted development. That volume makes it harder for quality plugins to stand out and for users to find the right tool. While the Plugin Review Team has expanded, improved tooling and even used AI to speed reviews — keeping average wait times near a week — the sheer number of entries still creates discoverability and ranking problems.
The public face of these problems includes:
– Many similar plugins competing for attention.
– Ranking factors that favour already established plugins (active installs are a strong signal).
– An open, inspectable search algorithm that is easier to game than closed commercial app stores.
– Plugin authors who publish primarily to make their own plugins accessible across sites rather than to reach a broad audience, adding to noise without necessarily providing value to users.
Practical experiments and proposals
Luke advocates pragmatic, achievable experiments rather than sweeping overnight changes. Key proposals include:
1) Connect wordpress.org accounts to WordPress installs
– Allow logging into WordPress with a wordpress.org account (using the upcoming Connectors API). This would let users sync favourites, preferences and site‑level metadata across installations and improve personalised discovery in the Add Plugins UI.
2) Support external repositories and “untrusted sources” lists
– Let users add and manage lists of Git repositories (or other sources) in their wordpress.org profile — including private or premium plugin repositories. When installing plugins on a site, users could choose to include these sources and install directly (download ZIPs or authenticate via tokens). This would help developers and agencies install their own or client plugins without repackaging, and provide a more flexible way to surface non‑directory plugins while retaining wordpress.org’s curated central directory.
3) Explore an official commercial marketplace (carefully)
– Luke imagines a managed commercial layer where premium plugins could be sold on or through wordpress.org, with a small fee deducted and routed to project‑wide needs. He suggests a hypothetical 8% take (3% for payment processing and 5% for “Five for the Future” / the Foundation) to fund contributors, WordCamps, and paid time for tasks such as plugin review. This would also let WordPress offer first‑class premium plugin handling: built‑in update delivery, licence validation, and a simpler discovery path for paid products.
Benefits of these ideas
– Better discoverability for paid and high‑quality plugins.
– Easier distribution and updates for premium and custom plugins, reducing developer overhead (no need for custom updaters/licence systems).
– A sustainable funding path to support contributors, review teams and community events.
Valid concerns and trade‑offs
These proposals are controversial. Many in the community fear any commercialisation of wordpress.org would undermine open source values and could create unfair incentives, favoritism or governance problems. Introducing revenue into a project with strong volunteer roots must be handled transparently and with robust Foundation governance to avoid perverse outcomes. There’s also the risk of fragmenting the community if positions become entrenched.
Leadership, urgency and AI
Luke argues WordPress needs clear leadership and direction to remain relevant as the landscape shifts rapidly with AI. He notes recent renewed activism from project leadership and frames it as a necessary nudge rather than an automatic cause for alarm. The alternative — slow drift without decisive priorities — could leave WordPress less competitive for future website creators.
AI: opportunity, ethics and generational differences
AI is both a driver of change and a source of ethical questions. Points from the discussion:
– AI has enabled faster plugin creation, but also increased noise and duplication.
– Integration into WordPress core should remain optional; users and contributors must be able to opt out.
– Gen Z and many newcomers express strong reservations about AI. Over‑reliance on AI for contributions or content risks alienating potential contributors.
– There are legitimate ethical and environmental concerns about AI use that the project should acknowledge and address.
AI disclosure for plugins
A concrete, low‑friction idea Luke proposes is an AI disclosure header in plugin metadata. Rather than a binary flag, this would be a graded declaration of how AI was used (idea generation, autocomplete, code scaffolding, full code generation, etc.). Visible AI metadata on plugin directory pages would:
– Give users more information when choosing plugins.
– Provide data on how AI usage correlates with quality, updates and reviews.
– Encourage transparency without heavy policing.
Of course, voluntary disclosure could be gamed (an “honesty box” problem), and the community would need to consider validation or incentives for honest reporting.
Final thoughts
The conversation mixes realism with optimism: the plugin directory faces real challenges from volume and shifting technology, but there are pragmatic experiments that can be tried without upending the project’s foundations. Priorities include improving discoverability, giving developers easier ways to distribute premium and custom plugins, funding contributor work sustainably, and introducing transparency around AI use.
Luke’s final request is simple: run experiments, gather data, and use that evidence to guide decisions rather than rely solely on ideology. If you want to hear more of Luke’s thoughts, he co‑hosts the Crossword podcast at crossword.fm, which covers WordPress topics in more depth.