Twenty years. That’s just wild! WordPress (which turned 20 in 2023) came to my awareness in or around 2007. I was a stay-at-home mom, trying to figure out how to contribute to our family income, while maintaining my commitment to homeschooling them. WordPress gave me that! In a very real “this helped us pay our bills” kind of way.

WordPress, and then WordPress.com, changed everything for me. It went from being the platform that helped me contribute to my family’s income to becoming my employer. And the place where I’ve built my career.

And that’s what democratizing the web actually looks like in practice, building something that matters, the ability to earn money, and to ultimately contribute to supporting my family. All backed up by this foundational belief that everyone should have access to their own corner of the web. Gives me goosebumps.

My story isn’t unique. There are millions of creators and businesses who’ve built something real on this platform. 409 million people visiting each month. 70 million new posts. These are real people with their own stories about what WordPress.com made possible for them.

So, happy 20th birthday to WordPress.com. Thanks for trusting us with our corners of the web. Thanks for making freedom and ownership actually mean something.