I have to disagree. Dreamhost makes it very simple to register a domain and have WP installed. Wordpress.com makes it simpler still. How much simpler does it ne

I have to disagree. Dreamhost makes it very simple to register a domain and have WP installed. Wordpress.com makes it simpler still. How much simpler does it need to be? Everyone knows what WordPress is, I think people who entertain the idea of publishing are aware of their options now. The draw of social networks is that there is a low friction process -- facilitated by an interested party -- which makes it very easy to go from ideation to publication. Until very recent versions of WP, it was a pain in the ass (from a regular user's perspective) to simply post a set of pictures along with some thoughts. If we look at your set of questions, something like e.g. Facebook provides answers to all of them which are, yes unsatisfying, but the trade off is a low-effort process. EDIT: Also, out of curiosity what do you use to host your site, and how/why did you choose it?