"Why is WordPress slow?"

I've seen this question asked and answered many, many times. And it seems that the answers depend on who you ask:

• WP Users:

  • "I have no idea... it just is."

• Non-WP Users:

  • "Because it's old/PHP. Use Next/Nuxt/Astro/Webflow/Wix/Ghost/...."

• Theme developers:

  • "It's plugins or hosting. Or other themes - ours is fast."

• Plugin developers:

  • "It's theme or hosting. Or other plugins - ours is fast."

• Hosting company:

  • "It's plugins or theme. Or other hostings - come to us we're fast."

• WordPress "Experts":

  • "WordPress powers 43% of the web(...)"

• WordPress Core Performance:

  • "We'd like to make it fast, but we can't make any drastic changes, because someone should be able to run their blog on a solar-powered potato..."

• WordPress Performance Experts:

  • "It's complicated... I can make an audit, it will take around 10h and cost $999"

• WordPress Cache Plugin developers:

  • "It's not if you cache everything!"

• WordPress Performance Plugin developers:

  • "There are many reasons, but our plugin fixes all of them!

    • *unless it doesn't - then you need to switch hosting"

( yes, it's a satire )