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I'd say it far too hard to bring up a personal site. Why are there no free tier zero config markdown web hosts including a custom domain for $20/yr? Why doesn't

I'd say it far too hard to bring up a personal site. Why are there no free tier zero config markdown web hosts including a custom domain for $20/yr? Why doesn't the domain registration entitle you to a single static 100kB page, and/or a redirect to some shared my-site.on.domain.com? Instead there is brittle configuration and/or having to contract a third party. Come to think of it, what has ICANN been doing with their monopoly? Where is all that (10 figure?) money going to? I don't mind a tax, in fact open source infrastructure would benefit greatly from (tax-financed) bounties, but I see nothing being offered in return. Who's drinking from this neverending firehose?

natebc 4y ago
Re: ICANN https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/financials-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/financials-... They do publish financial reports. They also publish some details about executive compensation. https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/remuneration-practices-fy23-01jul22-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/remuneration-pra... Granted ... I don't really know what we're getting for that. :D
tech234a 4y ago
You can almost get this with CloudFlare. They have a domain registrar and free static HTML hosting that you can upload a ZIP file to or connect to Git. (Note: I’m not a CloudFlare employee, but I do use the CloudFlare Pages HTML hosting service.)
kwhitefoot 4y ago
If you can write HTML or have some sort of script that creates HTML from Markdown then you could use neocities.org
dspillett 4y ago
> Why are there no free tier zero config markdown web hosts including a custom domain for $20/yr? There are shared hosting providers around that price, including domain, that offer one-click WordPress installation, and WordPress-specific hosting options, so that exists in a slightly different form. Non-technical people know about WordPress a lot more than they know about markdown, and technical people would more likely want to self-manage such an arrangement, so I don't think there would be a large enough market to make that practical (the margins would be low, even accounting for the potential for lower resource use per client than WordPress by using something simpler, so you'd need to sell a lot of accounts to make it worth-while). > Why doesn't the domain registration entitle you to a single static 100kB page I don't think enough people would want it to make it a key differentiator against competing registrars, so the extra admin (particularly dealing with occasional copyright claims and other legal issues, and a DDoS attack against a client every now and then) would not be worth it. Registrars are essentially competing on price and inertia, and will do nothing extra unless it brings in extra money or makes them look enough better than the next registrar to the average user.
- hotcoffeebear 4y ago
  I have tried gohugo + gitlab, just because portability of md files. I would pay small fee for a service which provide a more user friendly IU*. Small fee because i am writing very rarely, and in this subscription ridden world, i am already enough recurring payments. Forestry.io was confusing because i am dumb.
  - dspillett 4y ago
    I can see the utility, but: > Small fee because i am writing very rarely there like the problem: I don't think the number is people willing to pay that small fee is worth it from a commercial perspective. Of course you might get lucky and find a f/oss option written by someone with very similar needs/wants, but you'll probably have to self-host that so have a bit of admin to do.

natebc 4y ago

Re: ICANN https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/financials-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/financials-... They do publish financial reports. They also publish some details about executive compensation. https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/remuneration-practices-fy23-01jul22-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/remuneration-pra... Granted ... I don't really know what we're getting for that. :D

tech234a 4y ago

You can almost get this with CloudFlare. They have a domain registrar and free static HTML hosting that you can upload a ZIP file to or connect to Git. (Note: I’m not a CloudFlare employee, but I do use the CloudFlare Pages HTML hosting service.)

kwhitefoot 4y ago

If you can write HTML or have some sort of script that creates HTML from Markdown then you could use neocities.org

dspillett 4y ago

> Why are there no free tier zero config markdown web hosts including a custom domain for $20/yr? There are shared hosting providers around that price, including domain, that offer one-click WordPress installation, and WordPress-specific hosting options, so that exists in a slightly different form. Non-technical people know about WordPress a lot more than they know about markdown, and technical people would more likely want to self-manage such an arrangement, so I don't think there would be a large enough market to make that practical (the margins would be low, even accounting for the potential for lower resource use per client than WordPress by using something simpler, so you'd need to sell a lot of accounts to make it worth-while). > Why doesn't the domain registration entitle you to a single static 100kB page I don't think enough people would want it to make it a key differentiator against competing registrars, so the extra admin (particularly dealing with occasional copyright claims and other legal issues, and a DDoS attack against a client every now and then) would not be worth it. Registrars are essentially competing on price and inertia, and will do nothing extra unless it brings in extra money or makes them look enough better than the next registrar to the average user.

hotcoffeebear 4y ago
I have tried gohugo + gitlab, just because portability of md files. I would pay small fee for a service which provide a more user friendly IU*. Small fee because i am writing very rarely, and in this subscription ridden world, i am already enough recurring payments. Forestry.io was confusing because i am dumb.
- dspillett 4y ago
  I can see the utility, but: > Small fee because i am writing very rarely there like the problem: I don't think the number is people willing to pay that small fee is worth it from a commercial perspective. Of course you might get lucky and find a f/oss option written by someone with very similar needs/wants, but you'll probably have to self-host that so have a bit of admin to do.