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Before I make a comment I wanted to say I think Ghost is an awesome initiative and hope that it furthers what's already been accomplished by Wordpress. That be

by jmathai 13y ago

Before I make a comment I wanted to say I think Ghost is an awesome initiative and hope that it furthers what's already been accomplished by Wordpress. That being said, I was a bit bummed to see it as a pay only option. I get it, you have to pay bills. Seriously, I get it - we just ditched our consumer product due to this fact. $5/month is more than I'm willing to pay to try it out. And in reality, it's too much for me to pay even if I like it. That keeps me from trying it out and falling in love with it. You know what I would pay $5/month for? A blog for my business. But I'll end up installing or signing up on Wordpress because I'm familiar with it. Because I was able to use it for free. This mentality sucks, I know. Welcome to the consumer Internet. Edit: I'm not suggesting that they offer a free plan. I wouldn't. I hope they focus sooner than later off the consumer market.

dkuntz2 13y ago
You could still pay that $5/month; just get a cheap VPS or other host that supports Node.js, and run Ghost yourself. I think Digital Ocean (which has a $5/month plan) has a really simple Ghost installer.
spindritf 13y ago
$5/month is more than I'm willing to pay to try it out. First month is free.
- jmathai 13y ago
  Right. But $5/month is more than I'd be willing to pay for a personal blog. That keeps me from investing time to try it out for other uses I'd be more willing to pay $5/month for.
  - girasquid 13y ago
    How many billable hours would it take to make the $60/year this will cost you?
    - jmathai 13y ago
      It's totally illogical. I'm not arguing that it makes any sense...I am arguing that's the mentality you'll find in the consumer Internet space.
      - chc 13y ago
        It's one of the mentalities you'll find in that space. Not all consumers are price-sensitive to $5, and the ones who aren't are probably the ones you want more anyway.
    - VLM 13y ago
      regardless if they're trying to make a go of it as a business, the mental model inside the users mind is going to be "They're going to take the first $60 of adwords revenue before I get a penny, that isn't cool". Only a microscopic minority of bloggers blog to acquire billable hours. Hobbyists are pretty cool paying "magazine subscription rates" as a household budgetary line item. All the spouse hears is "I'm gonna spend $30 on my hobby blah blah blah" and that goes by a lot easier than $60.
      - e12e 13y ago
        While I think halfing the price might be a little too much (for starting out), I think selling a year for 39.99 would probably be viable. Charging much less than 5 as a minimum payment doesn't sound very sustainable wrt expected churn, payment problems etc. I may very well be completely wrong, though. Also, don't ignore the value of "choosing" the best customers -- those willing to pay, and willing to dedicate some resources (exemplified by paying a premium). If you build a good "community" of users, they will affect new users later -- by being an initial majority.
    - octix 13y ago
      Good luck with this motto :) A penny saved is a penny earned!
marban 13y ago
I've built a medium.com-like experience for blogging newbies (http://www.postagon.com http://www.postagon.com) and I can tell you that people do indeed pay for it. I think Ghost just needs some time to find its identity between all the different options and target groups.
pera 13y ago
yes... I mean, I'm paying $5 for my VPS, so the same amount for a blog seems "too much". And yes: those who are looking for a free blog would choice WP or some static system on GitHub. $1/month would be interesting for me (and even more if I can pay with bitcoin), but I don't know anything about marketing :P
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  You can run Ghost on that VPS...
wanda 13y ago
Ghost can be freely hosted on Red Hat OpenShift. There's even a quickstart installation that gives you node+mySQL and an optional load balancer in 2 clicks and 2 lines in a terminal. https://www.openshift.com https://www.openshift.com https://www.openshift.com/quickstarts/ghost-with-mysql-on-openshift https://www.openshift.com/quickstarts/ghost-with-mysql-on-op... Stick your own alias over that bothersome .rhcloud.com and you're laughing.

by jmathai 13y ago

dkuntz2 13y ago

You could still pay that $5/month; just get a cheap VPS or other host that supports Node.js, and run Ghost yourself. I think Digital Ocean (which has a $5/month plan) has a really simple Ghost installer.

spindritf 13y ago

$5/month is more than I'm willing to pay to try it out. First month is free.

jmathai 13y ago
Right. But $5/month is more than I'd be willing to pay for a personal blog. That keeps me from investing time to try it out for other uses I'd be more willing to pay $5/month for.
- girasquid 13y ago
  How many billable hours would it take to make the $60/year this will cost you?
  - jmathai 13y ago
    It's totally illogical. I'm not arguing that it makes any sense...I am arguing that's the mentality you'll find in the consumer Internet space.
    - chc 13y ago
      It's one of the mentalities you'll find in that space. Not all consumers are price-sensitive to $5, and the ones who aren't are probably the ones you want more anyway.
  - VLM 13y ago
    regardless if they're trying to make a go of it as a business, the mental model inside the users mind is going to be "They're going to take the first $60 of adwords revenue before I get a penny, that isn't cool". Only a microscopic minority of bloggers blog to acquire billable hours. Hobbyists are pretty cool paying "magazine subscription rates" as a household budgetary line item. All the spouse hears is "I'm gonna spend $30 on my hobby blah blah blah" and that goes by a lot easier than $60.
    - e12e 13y ago
      While I think halfing the price might be a little too much (for starting out), I think selling a year for 39.99 would probably be viable. Charging much less than 5 as a minimum payment doesn't sound very sustainable wrt expected churn, payment problems etc. I may very well be completely wrong, though. Also, don't ignore the value of "choosing" the best customers -- those willing to pay, and willing to dedicate some resources (exemplified by paying a premium). If you build a good "community" of users, they will affect new users later -- by being an initial majority.
  - octix 13y ago
    Good luck with this motto :) A penny saved is a penny earned!

marban 13y ago

I've built a medium.com-like experience for blogging newbies (http://www.postagon.com http://www.postagon.com) and I can tell you that people do indeed pay for it. I think Ghost just needs some time to find its identity between all the different options and target groups.

pera 13y ago

yes... I mean, I'm paying $5 for my VPS, so the same amount for a blog seems "too much". And yes: those who are looking for a free blog would choice WP or some static system on GitHub. $1/month would be interesting for me (and even more if I can pay with bitcoin), but I don't know anything about marketing :P

dkuntz2 13y ago
You can run Ghost on that VPS...

wanda 13y ago

Ghost can be freely hosted on Red Hat OpenShift. There's even a quickstart installation that gives you node+mySQL and an optional load balancer in 2 clicks and 2 lines in a terminal. https://www.openshift.com https://www.openshift.com https://www.openshift.com/quickstarts/ghost-with-mysql-on-openshift https://www.openshift.com/quickstarts/ghost-with-mysql-on-op... Stick your own alias over that bothersome .rhcloud.com and you're laughing.