Underwhelmed

I realize this is the ‘beta’ version for testing and feedback, but it looks more like an ‘alpha-2’ release. I also accept that any major change requires a learning curve. That said, after minor testing on a new install with the Twenty Seventeen theme, I’m completely underwhelmed. My first observations are:

1. Too many clicks to do anything. If you’re trying to compete with drag-and-drop, you missed the point.
2. I can’t figure out how to resize an embedded video from a URL. They are all 350 x 150.
3. I can’t embed a video from a Facebook URL in a video block, but I can as a theme widget.
4. The ‘Columns’ block notes it’s in beta, but until basic responsive functionality works, this is not a beta release.

I’m all for making improvements for the personal bloggers on wordpress.com to compete with Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, or whatever drag-and-drop pagebuilder you seem to want to address; however, that is a completely different user base than those of us who use WordPress as a development platform for more complex sites.

It appears from the other comments that the dev platform user base is quite happy with Visual Composer/WP Bakery, Divi, Beaver Builder, and other editing solutions we pay for as plugins or are included in premium themes. Disrupting this part of the industry to placate the blogger/cat picture posters is absurd.

As an old Drupal developer turned WordPress convert for the simplicity of development, integrations, as well as user documentation and training, I will have to rethink my recommendations to my clients. For now, I’ve turned off all automatic updates and will be watching for future updates and reviewing alternative CMS platforms.