Block Themes stress the hell out of bloggers

Publishers are such a unique and enjoyable niche to be a part of: they have carved a whole corner of the internet out for independent content. Though as a whole, I’ll admit, we have one accepted flaw: we are highly, highly susceptible to groupthink.

Strong opinions or scary experiences often cause waves throughout our entire niche and it’s such a weirdly positive and negative conundrum. It actually happens because we’re all looking to help each other succeed and sharing with each other.

I think this is a large part of why Block Themes are feared:

Block themes re-introduce three concepts that have been considered bad in our niche

1. Giving greater control to publishers again

Publishers have so much content (often hundreds or thousands of posts) that managing it all is a challenge in itself. With Classic Themes, the way we saw to manage a cohesive design with so much content was to create a custom theme that automated as much as possible. This simplified launch but it means any clients looking to add new templates and features are looking at increasing development costs over time.

With Block Themes, ongoing development costs are nearly removed. Instead, lower content editing costs replace them. Beyond price, the difference is astounding. When editing posts, you are able to quickly re-style posts, modify individual blocks as needed, and add new features whenever you want. Development is done through WordPress Core updates and the use of plugins–which are far more affordable.

Read next: Six fears I had about Block Themes before working with them (and one I still have)

2. Encouraging the use of numerous plugins

A long while ago we had this “more plugins = more bad” mentality and even though I wrote about how that wasn’t really the case, it’s much easier to accept this label than understand the nuances of plugin performance.

Today, Block Themes do an excellent job of separating designs (theme) and functionality (plugins) to make a site easier to enhance, customize, and optimize. Block themes control colors, fonts, spacing, and in many cases layout. They allow you to set starting templates and patterns. But they don’t encourage any custom functionality. Plugins & blocks handle all of that, so even though we may be installing 2x or 3x the number of plugins, the code is actually easier to maintain.

3. Allowing creators to be creative & make mistakes

We’re so afraid of making mistakes that we strive for a community’s notion of perfection and give up the fun and creativity we loved. I’m not talking about distinguishing between areas of focus that lead to results and distractions that take away from the bottom line. I’m talking about the will to be unique, try something new, and enjoy the journey.

At the end of the day, your content is what matters. But Block Themes make it fun & easy to write posts, highlight information, and be proud of the brand that you’ve created.

I encourage you to play with Block Themes ASAP

The above thoughts are all reasonable. It’s OK for Block Themes to feel like a big, hairy, messy goal. They aren’t going away, though, and I think you’ll find that you love them.