This is the final episode of our podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has listened and supported us over the years! We’ve loved doing the show.

Download Audio (MP3, 22 minutes)

Manton and Daniel catch up on the latest developments in the WordPress vs. WPEngine kerfuffle, and continuing after-effects. They talk about Matt Mullenweg’s tendency lately to deliver seemingly calm and encouraging messages that are nonetheless laced with evidence of his spite towards antagonists. Finally they talk about Automattic’s decision to reduce its own contribution to WordPress Core development, and the implications for the rest of the WordPress community.

Links:

• Holiday Break – Matt’s December 20 post about the WordPress team shutting down for the holidays.
• WPEngine – WordPress hosting company at the center of Matt’s anger.
• The Mad King of WordPress? – Inc. magazine article profiling Matt Mullenweg in less than flattering ways.
• Inc. Hit Piece – Matt’s response to the Inc. article.
• I Support the Mad King – Manton’s defense of Matt Mullenweg.
• Aligning Automattic’s Contributions – Automattic announcement that they would drastically reduce their contributions to the open source WordPress project.
• The People Should Own the Town Square – Mastodon’s plans to diversify control of the company and brand away from sole control by its founder.
• Automattic and .blog – Manton responds to fears some have of the .blog domain being at risk.
• Micro.one – Manton’s recently launched lower cost blogging tier.

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Daniel talks to Manton about his new Micro.one initiative, which aims to bring in new users to Micro.blog. They talk about the risks and rewards of offering a free trial, the sustainability of under-priced web services, and whether Manton can measure the success of his new pricing options.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Micro.one – Manton’s new introductory, lower-cost blogging service.
• A/B Testing – Wikipedia article about the practice of running business experiments on users.

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Manton ships a new Micro.blog feature for photo collections. Daniel and Manton talk about the virtue of providing third-party APIs to support the same kinds of features as you add them to the platform as first-party features. How to decide when to release a major, paid upgrade? Daniel weighs the possibility of subscription pricing for MarsEdit. And finally, teasing Micro.one and developing features and products in secret so that people can’t talk you out of them before they ship.

Download Audio (MP3, 39 minutes)

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Micro.blog photo collections — Help page for new Micro.blog features.
• Micro.one — Teaser website for subscription launching January 2nd.
• Osborne effect — Microblog post from Manton.
• Say hello to Acorn 8 — Gus Mueller’s blog post.
• Acorn 8 — Product site with highlighted new features.
• MarsEdit 5.3 — Blog post announcing the release.

Manton is working on a new feature for Micro.blog, with particular attention to the Mac app. Daniel is refactoring MarsEdit and taking advantage of Swift 6 concurrency. Manton and Daniel talk about the latest announcements from OpenAI and the potential impact to software developers of the AI era.

Download Audio (MP3, 35 minutes)

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Swift 6 strict concurrency — Documentation from Apple.
• Blackbird project — Marco Arment’s database framework.
• 12 days of OpenAI — Fun marketing series from OpenAI.

Manton tells Daniel about the accidental mini-disaster he caused at Micro.blog while daring to deploy changes while on a cruise. They talk about the risk of losing trust with users when you make mistakes, especially repeatedly, and how unit testing might be a good protection against such problems. Then they talk more about Bluesky’s recent surge in popularity, and prospects for the future of the open web.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Links:

• Micro.blog – Manton’s blog-hosting service.
• Hugo – Web templating framework used by Micro.blog.
• AT Protocol – The social networking protocol used by Bluesky.
• Finally in a Good Place – Manton’s post appreciating the advantages of both the ActivityPub and AT protocol.
• Dithering – Subscription podcast from John Gruber and Ben Thompson.
• ActivityPub – The social networking protocol used by Mastodon and many other services.
• Social Web Community Group – W3C community group supporting social networking technologies.

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Daniel and Manton talk about Apple’s new Image Playground, an AI-based graphic generator. Even if it’s not super-impressive, maybe it’s exciting for the average user? Manton relates his recent attempts to write a new app in SwiftUI, which leads to an assessment of whether SwiftUI is ready for prime-time on iOS and/or Mac. Finally, they talk about whether we’re all propelling towards a web-only future, and whether that might be just fine.

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Enjoy our show? Become a sustaining member!

Election Day! Daniel and Manton talk about early voting, political outcomes, and the impacts of those outcomes on our professional ambitions. Then they switch topics to the Mac, with Apple’s new hardware and what Daniel purchased. Finally, they talk about the incentive AI provides for ever-more-powerful computing resources, and take stock of our personal responsibility for conservation.

Download Audio (MP3, 30 minutes)

Daniel and Manton talk about upcoming changes we might see to the Mac product line. They review the state of social networks including Bluesky’s new funding and user growth. Finally, how much money is enough and is it a failure if you don’t constantly seek more?

Download Audio (MP3, 41 minutes)

Many thanks to our sponsor this week:

• RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!

Trademarking Micro.blog, how to appeal trademark rejections, and whether to get a lawyer. Manton and Daniel talk about whether it’s important to invest in protecting your trademark from the get-go. They discuss Automattic’s control of the .blog domain, whether it poses a risk to Manton, and Manton considering rebranding to de-emphasize the “micro” aspect of his platform. Plus a quick mention of Automattic and WP Engine, which also revolves around trademarks.

Download Audio (MP3, 25 minutes)