@rubenerd It sounds like you didn’t take the time to research the original purpose you’re referring to. The “just” in “Just a blogging platform” has always referred to a exclusivity of focus on a particular usecase, not a reductive version of “simple and will never change” that you’re implying.
It was a play on the criticism WordPress always refuted, that it was not just a blogging platform, and could do many other things - like build a job board, or a real estate website, or a social network, [and so on]
We haven’t changed direction. If we could have built the dashboard and memberships in 2013, we would have, but unfortunately it took us 8 years 
In that 8 years, the most consistent user feedback we’ve had is that people are looking to grow an audience and build a business, which is what memberships addresses. There are far, far more people who are actively looking for this functionality than those complaining about not wanting it.