This is a huge issue. A good friend of mine runs a webshop that builds custom CMS', marketing websites, shopping portals, and occasionally pretty sophisticated

This is a huge issue. A good friend of mine runs a webshop that builds custom CMS', marketing websites, shopping portals, and occasionally pretty sophisticated apps for clients. I've talked to him a lot about his industry and PHP dominates because of hosting. Not only are all the shared hosts really affordable and set up to support PHP, but many larger clients have already invested in their "own" hosting setups, either co-located or with local firms. He's said there are agencies in his industry that have switched to RoR or Django but that from his perspective a part of their model is the built-in acceptance that the tech will cause friction because of hosting, offset by the offer to host it for a fee...