People have been trying to build products to replace web developers for years, will we ever actually get to that point? Every time a new product comes to market it seems like it is a huge leap forward and yet web developers are still highly employable.
Weebly is more likely replacing low-end web designers (ie: the web designers who do projects for less than $5,000). But they are also growing market share- Weebly is cheap enough to get people online who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a website.
Weebly, Wix, and Square replace low-end 'web designers' who will usually build atop a WordPress core and stick it on a shared webhost, leaving it to be hacked due to security vulnerabilities. Sure, they leave you semi-dependent on a given web service. But, to the site owner, they're generally dependent on a single developer anyway since that dev doesn't usually give them the FTP credentials.
Weebly is pretty solid and the only major one that's free to use with your own domain. It just has a small 'powered by weebly' at the bottom. And it generates standard HTML and CSS that you can then move to another webhost later if you want. It also does an htaccess for redirects if you're moving from a previous host using different tech. The only downside is that you don't get full control over the URLs.
Incorrect. Squarespace charges you $8/mo for their base package to use your domain. Wix requires their "Connect Domain" plan to use your own domain at $4.08/mo with ads displayed. Yola requires $5.95/mo for your own domain. Virb is $10/mo.
Weebly's base package is free and includes the ability to use your own domain. It's the only one.
That's probably not exactly the right perspective. It's about empowering people who do not have the same skills. I don't think Weebly is aiming to replace the web developer: highly skilled people will always be in demand because they're inventing new things and pushing the boundaries on cutting-edge tech.
Weebly seems to be aimed at mainstream people who think "Boy, I should have website for my wedding/club/team/group/gaming clan." Of course, their goal is make that more and more empowering over time though. If you think about it, what you can do with Weebly was potentially difficult for the average web developer 10-15 years ago -- I'd say that's a leap! Before I started programming, I used front-page and dreamweaver to get started. Eventually, I got more sophisticated as I got more interested in building things but it was empowering to create a website without knowing HTML or CSS.
New products increase the size of the pie. When websites became something everyone could have, some work was lost to do-it-yourself tools but more was gained by the larger market.
