The end of WYSIWYG editors? And is it bad? The web is being disrupted... and I like it!

The paradox on this topic gives a lot to think about. How do developers look at work in their own field that is truly disruptive?

Why are coders and website builders alike so afraid of progress in the field they work in? Some disruptive startups like The Grid  and PageCloud are working on a tremendous change in how we look at building websites. But there are a lot of people who talk bad about it, expressing the fear for their jobs and the whole creative industry. What is it that fears people? Progress? Change?

Irony has it that most of them are actually coders exactly like the people working on these breakthroughs. Somehow they are against the succes of people very much like themselves. Is it jealousy then? Perhaps, but I believe it has more to do with the general fear of progress and change. 

People just don't like change a lot. If you look at history and go back to the introduction of the car; people were afraid of the progress too. Most responses now are very similar to those back then. 

There wasn't much else you could do

For almost two decades now the way of designing websites almost hasn't changed. For anything you wanted to change it would take a tremendous amount of time and resources to make a creative update of a website. For the content you needed specialists for 'content management systems' and to move anything beyond the original layout you needed coders and designers to make it happen. The so called 'What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)' editors were supposed to make it easier, did they ever really? And what about the cost of the software, was it really worth it? Probably questions hard to answer but the reality was; there was not much else you could do.

Now these startups are disrupting the whole idea of web development. PageCloud proudly says you can make "changes in a matter of seconds" and you can "Experience desktop publishing on the web." Where The Grid goes as far as having a complete 'artificial intelligence' that does everything for you. Just throw whatever you want to publish at the interface and it will use algorithms to create the content and design for you.

Isn't it great that we finally see some progress again in webdesign? I believe that this just enables people to focus on what really matters; great content.

There will always still be a need for programming and custom design. But for the majority of SMB's this progress will mean they will have more time to do what they are good at. I embrace the idea of innovating webdesign and making it as easy as desktop publishing and I sure hope that there will be more players in this area soon. I hope programmers and developers will take on the challenge to become a competitor to these startups and that the future of the web will be disrupted many times again!