I've been saying most of the things you are about to read about here for some time now, but I thought I might as well put them down in writing for posterity, as well as a record of my thoughts during this period. Please keep reading 🙂
So unlike most of the members of the community, my livelihood doesn't depend on Backdrop. I (unfortunately) don't get to work with Backdrop as part of my day job - Drupal is what pays the bills and puts food on the table. And Drupal has improved over the course of time, especially the most recent versions, with all the work our Drupal brethren have poured over the Claro admin theme and UX and accessibility etc. However, there are times when I have to work on a Drupal 7 site, and each time that happens I have noticed how hard things are. You need to install additional modules, configure many things, and even then, not all things work as you'd expect them to. I constantly find my self saying:
This feels so much easier with Backdrop, where the workflows for almost everything in the UI seem considerably less problematic and much more streamlined. Ugh!
I cannot always quite put my finger on it - I don't know what it is specifically that makes it feel that way. But then it dawns on me: as a community, we have been putting so much effort, time, energy, and love into this project over the past decade, that we have started taking things for granted. We have made the tiniest of tweaks and improvements here and there, and they are hundreds of them! There's a huge amount of fixes and UI/UX improvements added over the years (and we still have many more down our roadmap). Well, you know what? ...it all adds up!
I'd also like to take the opportunity to say a huge "I love y'all" to all the brilliant people in our community. You folks rock, and your efforts are making a difference! ❤️