Comment by omnimus

It's way more nuanced. Wordpress became popular thanks to convergence of many things including work done by PHP and shared hosting providers (and of course linux). WP itself is not that special CMS but it was main platform people knew about where you can easily self-host and thus be in control/independent. I can't understate how much this is THE main feature. And this is mainly thanks to the PHP/hosting not WP itself.

In that ecosystem everybody depends on everybody. It is also shared open competitive market. But importantly more people use WP the better for everyone.

When you start to throw your weight around thinking you should be getting more because it's all your doing... you will upset the balance. People will call you out. Because they want and need the ecosystem to stay open.

For example think about PHP itself... should they be upset and also want more? The creators of PHP didn't become millionares quite the oposite. Why aren't they entitled to some of the pie? Or Linux? Or what about the guy that cofounded Wordpress but never was invited to be part of Automattic?