While I don't like WordPress either, I begrudgingly use it. My only wordpress website is a hobbyist news website where 1) 5-6 people need to be able to publish article on it, none of them (except me) have technical experience, and 2) we can only spare $10-$15 per month for the overall cost (and no, there's no way to make money here). This put me in a situation where almost the only option is self-hosted WordPress.
It makes sense and I think that's the reason WP has survived. In fact I started out like that, later building my startup product website(s) using WP; But once the tech-debt became too high I had to take a call.
