> If you didn't know any better, you would expect almost all normal users to have [2] and professional engineers to have something like [1], but it's actually the inverse: only few professional software engineers can "afford" to have the second option as their personal website, and almost all normal users are stuck with overcomplicated solutions.
I am confused, the inverse would be that professional engineers have [2] and normal users have [1]. But then they write that almost no professional engineer can "afford" [2], so everybody seems to have [1]..?
If you continue reading, the reasoning is given in the next sentence:
> Weird as it might be, it's not a great mystery why that is: it's easier to spin up a Wordpress blog than it is to figure out by yourself all the intermediate steps.
It is indeed written as you say; I suspect - but cannot confirm - that the author meant:
> ... only a few people - professional software engineers - can "afford" ...
which would be the inverse.
However, there is a case for reading as it is written even if it subverts reading expectations, as many (most?) professional software engineers do use COTS systems to publish and only a few have their own sites generated from scratch.
I am confused, the inverse would be that professional engineers have [2] and normal users have [1]. But then they write that almost no professional engineer can "afford" [2], so everybody seems to have [1]..?