Democratising publishing(john.onolan.org)
john.onolan.org
Democratising publishing
https://john.onolan.org/democratising-publishing/
56 comments
On the off chance that someone here has recommendations, I'll reply and say my experience with Ghost Pro was different. I am trying to start a small blog that will have a handful of writers, so the idea of using some kind of lightweight CMS with edit/post capability is appealing, but we don't like the clunky feeling of beefy CMSs, especially when it seems to be built entirely around the analytics, which we do not care all that much about (the blog is intended to be small and hobbiest, we are not interested in making money from it).
I found Ghost to be too "on rails" and much more robust than what we need, so it felt like paying for software that sat mostly unused. In my admittedly unskilled experience (I am learning webdev, but not anywhere close to a pro, yet) it felt like I was using WordPress with a different name, which was a turn off.
I have Drupal 11 spun up on VPS but I have not had a moment to sit down and start really digging into it, yet. If anyone has some smaller CMS to recommend (even paid is fine, if the prices is reasonable) that allows for a nice WYSIWYG editor, user accounts and roles, code editor when needed, I'd love to try it.
I found Ghost to be too "on rails" and much more robust than what we need, so it felt like paying for software that sat mostly unused. In my admittedly unskilled experience (I am learning webdev, but not anywhere close to a pro, yet) it felt like I was using WordPress with a different name, which was a turn off.
I have Drupal 11 spun up on VPS but I have not had a moment to sit down and start really digging into it, yet. If anyone has some smaller CMS to recommend (even paid is fine, if the prices is reasonable) that allows for a nice WYSIWYG editor, user accounts and roles, code editor when needed, I'd love to try it.
Thanks to Kye for pointing this out to me.
Honestly, you’re actually not going to find much better for a simple multi-user setup than Ghost. It may have a lot of features built around newsletters and analytics that you’re not using, but the thing is, they’re there because it’s essentially throwing you the package it thinks will benefit most users, rather than forcing you to choose a bunch of plugins. If it feels overkill, that’s only because they wanted to cover the broadest use cases, rather than forcing users to decide on a package of 30 plugins, by a myriad number of developers.
I have used a lot of CMS platforms and I think you will find the complexity actually goes up from Ghost in most cases. (And if simplicity is your goal … you’re not going to find that with Drupal, which is extremely enterprise-oriented these days.)
If you think you’re getting overcharged for it, I’d recommend looking into self-hosting. Ghost is an extremely easy piece of software to run in a Docker instance on a shoebox somewhere. I do it myself for a couple of small sites. It’s really not that bad.
Honestly, you’re actually not going to find much better for a simple multi-user setup than Ghost. It may have a lot of features built around newsletters and analytics that you’re not using, but the thing is, they’re there because it’s essentially throwing you the package it thinks will benefit most users, rather than forcing you to choose a bunch of plugins. If it feels overkill, that’s only because they wanted to cover the broadest use cases, rather than forcing users to decide on a package of 30 plugins, by a myriad number of developers.
I have used a lot of CMS platforms and I think you will find the complexity actually goes up from Ghost in most cases. (And if simplicity is your goal … you’re not going to find that with Drupal, which is extremely enterprise-oriented these days.)
If you think you’re getting overcharged for it, I’d recommend looking into self-hosting. Ghost is an extremely easy piece of software to run in a Docker instance on a shoebox somewhere. I do it myself for a couple of small sites. It’s really not that bad.
You've convinced me to give it another shot. Another commenter also pointed out Drupal's complexities, which I should have realized, in retrospect.
I am also looking at October, which sounds like it checks some of my boxes, but we'll see. Thankfully, there is no time-table for this project, so I can try a few things out before we settle.
https://github.com/octobercms/october
I am also looking at October, which sounds like it checks some of my boxes, but we'll see. Thankfully, there is no time-table for this project, so I can try a few things out before we settle.
https://github.com/octobercms/october
Had no idea about the drama surrounding October. Thank you for the recommendations. Kirby looks nice, as well, at first glance.
Will be trying both Winter and Kirby this weekend. I am really struggling getting Ghost up and running properly (LEMP stack). It seems to install fine, but breaks my nginx config so when I go to access the admin page (https://<my.domain>/ghost/) I get a 404 error.
Will be trying both Winter and Kirby this weekend. I am really struggling getting Ghost up and running properly (LEMP stack). It seems to install fine, but breaks my nginx config so when I go to access the admin page (https://<my.domain>/ghost/) I get a 404 error.
Ghost is Node-based, so no PHP. (Shouldn’t functionally matter much as it’s designed in a way that you don’t need to mess in the code once you have everything set.) Not sure about your install process, but make sure your routes.yaml is properly set:
https://www.mellen.io/ghost-blog-404-error-fix/
https://www.mellen.io/ghost-blog-404-error-fix/
I gave October a pretty serious look about five or six years ago. I like the fact that you can code in the interface, which can feel more friendly than competing platforms. But I thought the community hadn’t reached a level of scale that I thought was enough that I could trust it.
Also, I know that you have said you’re willing to pay and you’re not necessarily looking for FOSS, but I will point out there was some licensing drama with October a few years ago that led to a full-on fork: https://wintercms.com/blog/post/we-have-forked-october-cms
You may also find Kirby a good fit: https://getkirby.com
Also, I know that you have said you’re willing to pay and you’re not necessarily looking for FOSS, but I will point out there was some licensing drama with October a few years ago that led to a full-on fork: https://wintercms.com/blog/post/we-have-forked-october-cms
You may also find Kirby a good fit: https://getkirby.com
Drupal makes me cry. And as other folk here have said, just stick ghost on your own host. I have a dev version running on a raspberry pi on my desk so that I can test ideas locally. Obviously I could have done that on my mac, but I just wanted to see what would happen and it's fine. You could probably run a live site off it no problem, so long as it wasn't heavily trafficked.
Just mentioning that Drupal is way more complicated than any of the other offerings as well.
Comrade Ernie Smith wrote a thing on this: https://tedium.co/2024/10/20/wordpress-cms-alternatives-cont...
For the tax or corp. lawyers:
Is it possible for some clever business person to start a non-profit, amass a bundle of money, convert to for-profit, and then own the bundle of money to do with as they see fit? If yes, I'd assume there would be tax implications in that the bundle of money would be some ~70% after paying the gov.
Is it possible for some clever business person to start a non-profit, amass a bundle of money, convert to for-profit, and then own the bundle of money to do with as they see fit? If yes, I'd assume there would be tax implications in that the bundle of money would be some ~70% after paying the gov.
Not a lawyer, but my local university (a registered non-profit) had an AI department that took in a ton of grant money before they rolled it out into a for-profit.
The "founders" got fat salaries and bonuses after the conversion. They then started going around town hyping their success and whitewashing the history of the "startup" as if it was bootstrapped.
I have no idea how they managed to legally pull that off...
The "founders" got fat salaries and bonuses after the conversion. They then started going around town hyping their success and whitewashing the history of the "startup" as if it was bootstrapped.
I have no idea how they managed to legally pull that off...
If your name is Scam Altman then it's a breeze to do so
Not quite a breeze, to be fair. You gotta manufacture a bit of drama, install bad actors in key positions, pull media strings, etc.
But yeah it can be done.
But yeah it can be done.
> Is it possible for some clever business person to start a non-profit, amass a bundle of money, convert to for-profit, and then own the bundle of money to do with as they see fit?
Not a lawyer, but as the Ghost Foundation is not a charity, the trustees can currently do whatever they want with the money.
Not a lawyer, but as the Ghost Foundation is not a charity, the trustees can currently do whatever they want with the money.
Their about page claims non profit, Wikipedia and others say registered in Singapore but I don’t see anything under “ghost” as a society [0] or as a charity [1]. For something that has “believe in being transparent” in the about page, the lack of any registration number or a link to the touted constitution is odd.
DNS registrant is from West Yorkshire, GB [2].
0. https://eservices2.mha.gov.sg/ros/search-society
1. https://authoring.charities.gov.sg/
2. https://www.whois.com/whois/ghost.org
DNS registrant is from West Yorkshire, GB [2].
0. https://eservices2.mha.gov.sg/ros/search-society
1. https://authoring.charities.gov.sg/
2. https://www.whois.com/whois/ghost.org
> Their about page claims non profit, Wikipedia and others say registered in Singapore but I don’t see anything under “ghost” as a society [0] or as a charity [1].
Ghost Foundation is a Company Limited by Guarantee [1] in Singapore. The UEN is 201605007D.
As I wrote above, it's not a charity, and therefore doesn't need to have charitable goals.
[1] https://ghost.org/changelog/moving-to-singapore/
Ghost Foundation is a Company Limited by Guarantee [1] in Singapore. The UEN is 201605007D.
As I wrote above, it's not a charity, and therefore doesn't need to have charitable goals.
[1] https://ghost.org/changelog/moving-to-singapore/
Seems like it’s filings and meetings are done about this time of year. [0] The move to Singapore is super interesting, esp with dsivers input. Thanks for linking to it.
0. https://www.tis.bizfile.gov.sg/ngbtisinternet/faces/oracle/w...
0. https://www.tis.bizfile.gov.sg/ngbtisinternet/faces/oracle/w...
Not a lawyer, my understanding is no- assets must be disposed to another non profit with a similar mission. The specifics of disposition being determined by the particular state
I can't really comment too much on historical Wordpress politics—given Matt's recent public meltdown I'm completely willing to believe that he's continued to shoot Wordpress in the foot in more obscure ways in the past—but the posturing here vs. Wordpress really strikes me as someone who has gotten lucky and has attributed that luck to skill instead.
What happens when Ghost gets popular enough to get their own "G Engine" competing with with Ghost (Pro)? As Wordpress.com shows, there's no serious moat for open source hosting. Either Ghost devotes resources away from their open core and towards their hosting platform, or they lose the competition for marketshare to a company that does devote those resources and then they have no funding stream, aside from what G Engine deigns to give them out of the grace of their own heart. And all of the platitudes about voting or board seats and everything else don't really make one lick of difference if you don't have any funding to make that happen, and you have to rely on pay-to-play funding from the people who are actually making money in the space, and let them set your agenda.
So, Matt's behavior aside, I do think these issues are pretty endemic to the idea of "open core" funding as a company (or market) grows beyond a certain size. Unified non-profit or dual-corporation structure (Mozilla Corporation vs Mozilla Foundation) doesn't change the fundamental logic of "where does the money come from?". I don't think Ghost is providing any new solutions here—they've just gotten lucky / been small enough to not be out-competed in their hosting niche yet.
What happens when Ghost gets popular enough to get their own "G Engine" competing with with Ghost (Pro)? As Wordpress.com shows, there's no serious moat for open source hosting. Either Ghost devotes resources away from their open core and towards their hosting platform, or they lose the competition for marketshare to a company that does devote those resources and then they have no funding stream, aside from what G Engine deigns to give them out of the grace of their own heart. And all of the platitudes about voting or board seats and everything else don't really make one lick of difference if you don't have any funding to make that happen, and you have to rely on pay-to-play funding from the people who are actually making money in the space, and let them set your agenda.
So, Matt's behavior aside, I do think these issues are pretty endemic to the idea of "open core" funding as a company (or market) grows beyond a certain size. Unified non-profit or dual-corporation structure (Mozilla Corporation vs Mozilla Foundation) doesn't change the fundamental logic of "where does the money come from?". I don't think Ghost is providing any new solutions here—they've just gotten lucky / been small enough to not be out-competed in their hosting niche yet.
> the posturing here vs. Wordpress really strikes me as someone who has gotten lucky and has attributed that luck to skill instead.
Twelve years is a long time to be 'lucky'
Twelve years is a long time to be 'lucky'
Well, WordPress made it 20+ years without a huge fuss over the fact that everything was controlled by Matt. And it only happened now because Matt himself blew things up!
Ghost has been lucky that their own conflict of interest hasn't been an issue: The cofounders don't own anything, but they still have complete control on the nonprofit. It sounds like John O'Nolan is trying to take pre-emptive steps to prevent WordPress drama in Ghost.
Ghost has been lucky that their own conflict of interest hasn't been an issue: The cofounders don't own anything, but they still have complete control on the nonprofit. It sounds like John O'Nolan is trying to take pre-emptive steps to prevent WordPress drama in Ghost.
> Well, WordPress made it 20+ years without a huge fuss over the fact that everything was controlled by Matt. And it only happened now because Matt himself blew things up!
I think most people in the community were willing to overlook Matt's previous petty, vindictive behaviour (e.g. Thesis, Wix, Pantheon, GoDaddy, Tumblr) since he's fairly charismatic in his writing, and was otherwise mostly benevolent.
I think most people in the community were willing to overlook Matt's previous petty, vindictive behaviour (e.g. Thesis, Wix, Pantheon, GoDaddy, Tumblr) since he's fairly charismatic in his writing, and was otherwise mostly benevolent.
It also helps that at least one of those (GoDaddy) has one of the worst reputations for a tech company out there.
I don't know if they still do it, but GoDaddy was notorious for just "early buying" domain names if you use their domain search engine (or any affiliated ones; it's why you really shouldn't search for domain names on random sites, GoDaddy controls a lot of domain search engines) to ensure you can't see if they're the cheapest option. Matt being upset with GoDaddy is easy to overlook because they're just plain awful already and it's a sort of "we don't agree with that in specific, but GoDaddy is a genuine problem so like, it's easy to overlook".
By contrast, WP Engine is just another general purpose hosting provider. I haven't found much evidence of them being particularly worse to their customers outside of their funding being a bad long-term choice. A lot of Matt's problems with WPE are well... Matt's problem and he can't seem to grasp that to everyone else, his smearing just makes him look like a petty dick.
I don't know if they still do it, but GoDaddy was notorious for just "early buying" domain names if you use their domain search engine (or any affiliated ones; it's why you really shouldn't search for domain names on random sites, GoDaddy controls a lot of domain search engines) to ensure you can't see if they're the cheapest option. Matt being upset with GoDaddy is easy to overlook because they're just plain awful already and it's a sort of "we don't agree with that in specific, but GoDaddy is a genuine problem so like, it's easy to overlook".
By contrast, WP Engine is just another general purpose hosting provider. I haven't found much evidence of them being particularly worse to their customers outside of their funding being a bad long-term choice. A lot of Matt's problems with WPE are well... Matt's problem and he can't seem to grasp that to everyone else, his smearing just makes him look like a petty dick.
> Ghost has been lucky that their own conflict of interest hasn't been an issue
But the whole point of this article is that it wasn't luck, it was intentional from the beginning...
But the whole point of this article is that it wasn't luck, it was intentional from the beginning...
I don't think the point of the article is that everything was intentional.
He leads with the differentiators from WordPress because WordPress alternatives are a big conversation at the moment. This is a chance to inform people about how Ghost chose to be different: Non-profit, no plugins, etc.
But the final section ("Governance & the road ahead") seems like a subtle admission that the current Ghost structure wouldn't prevent a BDFL from going off of the rails. Maybe it's too subtle, since he doesn't explicitly connect statements like these:
> Neither myself nor Hannah own any shares, assets, domains, trademarks, or other companies related to Ghost. Everything is owned by the Foundation.
> From the beginning, Ghost's governance structure has had a board of trustees made up of its two founders, myself and Hannah.
I think Matt showed that some of the open-source-foundation shell game isn't real: There's a WordPress Foundation, and WordPress.org, but it really all belongs to Matt.
So, if Ghost can follow through on changing it's governance structure, it gains another differentiator from WordPress.
He leads with the differentiators from WordPress because WordPress alternatives are a big conversation at the moment. This is a chance to inform people about how Ghost chose to be different: Non-profit, no plugins, etc.
But the final section ("Governance & the road ahead") seems like a subtle admission that the current Ghost structure wouldn't prevent a BDFL from going off of the rails. Maybe it's too subtle, since he doesn't explicitly connect statements like these:
> Neither myself nor Hannah own any shares, assets, domains, trademarks, or other companies related to Ghost. Everything is owned by the Foundation.
> From the beginning, Ghost's governance structure has had a board of trustees made up of its two founders, myself and Hannah.
I think Matt showed that some of the open-source-foundation shell game isn't real: There's a WordPress Foundation, and WordPress.org, but it really all belongs to Matt.
So, if Ghost can follow through on changing it's governance structure, it gains another differentiator from WordPress.
The main point of this article is to explain Ghost's unique approach to open-source publishing software through its non-profit foundation model and its vision for democratic governance.
The author (Ghost's original co-founder) outlines how Ghost differentiates itself by:
- Operating as a profitable non-profit foundation with no owners, where all profits are reinvested into the project
- Maintaining independence from investors and commercial interests to better serve its community's needs
- Focusing exclusively on publishing workflows rather than trying to be an all-purpose platform
- Planning for sustainable long-term governance, by
- Intentionally limiting the organization to ~50 people
- Planning to expand its board of trustees beyond the founders
- Growing an ecosystem rather than a single large company
I emphasized the active, concrete verbs (actually gerunds fwiw) so that you may see how they are different than the passive verbs associated with 'luck' like hoping, wishing, praying, etc.
The author (Ghost's original co-founder) outlines how Ghost differentiates itself by:
- Operating as a profitable non-profit foundation with no owners, where all profits are reinvested into the project
- Maintaining independence from investors and commercial interests to better serve its community's needs
- Focusing exclusively on publishing workflows rather than trying to be an all-purpose platform
- Planning for sustainable long-term governance, by
- Intentionally limiting the organization to ~50 people
- Planning to expand its board of trustees beyond the founders
- Growing an ecosystem rather than a single large company
I emphasized the active, concrete verbs (actually gerunds fwiw) so that you may see how they are different than the passive verbs associated with 'luck' like hoping, wishing, praying, etc.
> Operating as a profitable non-profit foundation with no owners, where all profits are reinvested into the project
Neither myself nor Hannah own any shares, assets, domains, trademarks, or other companies related to Ghost. Everything is owned by the Foundation.
our intention is to expand the seats on Ghost's board of trustees beyond myself and Hannah.
I don’t see how this is fundamentally different from the WP Foundation approach. It still depends on people who despite claiming an intention haven’t given up control.
Neither myself nor Hannah own any shares, assets, domains, trademarks, or other companies related to Ghost. Everything is owned by the Foundation.
our intention is to expand the seats on Ghost's board of trustees beyond myself and Hannah.
I don’t see how this is fundamentally different from the WP Foundation approach. It still depends on people who despite claiming an intention haven’t given up control.
> I don't think the point of the article is that everything was intentional.
Author of the article here - that was exactly the point of the article.
Author of the article here - that was exactly the point of the article.
Importantly, WordPress.com is not a predominant WP host! (Which is part of why Matt is lashing out, I think.) Yes, it hosts a huge number of small sites, many for free, but Automattic’s revenue comes from a lot of products. (Including e-commerce and enterprise.) There are a large number of healthy WordPress hosts. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/web_hosting
Getting outcompeted is less of a bad thing as you make it out to be. Ghost is clearly not trying to be the most popular option. They only need to make just enough to survive and pay everyone. That is way easier than trying to grow 30% YoY for a long time. Capitalists and founders talk about how if you’re not growing, your product could be better because people could like it even more. Who gives a shit if profit isn’t your MO?
Literally all they have to do is avoid a scenario where no one wants to use them. If a competitor becomes the de facto choice and they start loosing customers, they can still make adjustments. That is a lot easier than trying to be a high-growth company.
Getting outcompeted is less of a bad thing as you make it out to be. Ghost is clearly not trying to be the most popular option. They only need to make just enough to survive and pay everyone. That is way easier than trying to grow 30% YoY for a long time. Capitalists and founders talk about how if you’re not growing, your product could be better because people could like it even more. Who gives a shit if profit isn’t your MO?
Literally all they have to do is avoid a scenario where no one wants to use them. If a competitor becomes the de facto choice and they start loosing customers, they can still make adjustments. That is a lot easier than trying to be a high-growth company.
WordPress.com was a predominant WordPress host for a long time, and now they no longer are. That's exactly the point I'm making.
> Literally all they have to do is avoid a scenario where no one wants to use them. ... That is a lot easier than trying to be a high-growth company.
I don't really think it's as easy as you make it out to be. Easier? sure. Easy enough to sustain the company once Ghost gains more alternative hosts? I dunno.
> Literally all they have to do is avoid a scenario where no one wants to use them. ... That is a lot easier than trying to be a high-growth company.
I don't really think it's as easy as you make it out to be. Easier? sure. Easy enough to sustain the company once Ghost gains more alternative hosts? I dunno.
WordPress.com didn’t even allow plugins until ~6yr ago, so it really wasn’t a meaningful option for serious sites —- aka sites with money. It was a predominant blog hosting site for a while, but there isn’t as much money in that market. Other WP hosts have gone after more lucrative types of sites which need something more.
My point is that Automattic was successful for a long time without being the dominant host (at least in terms of money per site).
Honestly, I don’t get why Ghost must be the dominant company in the space. Sure, it’s a bit of a zero-sum game, but not so much that literally every other company in the space must die if one becomes more successful. If that happens, it’s just an impetus for other companies to adjust their approach.
You don’t need to grow so massively big to be able to compete. You just need a better product in one specific area that matters to enough customers, and you can do that sustainably with a small team.
My point is that Automattic was successful for a long time without being the dominant host (at least in terms of money per site).
Honestly, I don’t get why Ghost must be the dominant company in the space. Sure, it’s a bit of a zero-sum game, but not so much that literally every other company in the space must die if one becomes more successful. If that happens, it’s just an impetus for other companies to adjust their approach.
You don’t need to grow so massively big to be able to compete. You just need a better product in one specific area that matters to enough customers, and you can do that sustainably with a small team.
The first line of the article seems to state that ghost is a none profit organization.
They probably don’t need to seek growth by shifting focus away from their open source aspects.
They probably don’t need to seek growth by shifting focus away from their open source aspects.
"Non-profit" mainly means that because they have no shares and no shareholders, they're committed to never letting their company get acquired.
They're still allowed to grow, and have to in order to pay their salaries and hire more people.
They're still allowed to grow, and have to in order to pay their salaries and hire more people.
Growth, no, but they need a consistent revenue stream and if they don't shift focus away from their open source aspects to their paying customers, then their market share will be stolen by the companies that do and they'll lose their revenue stream
1) Many people or orgs who are aligned with Ghost and want it to succeed long-term will be okay with paying a bit more for hosting on Ghost(Pro); they might see the extra cost as paying for the continued existence and development of their publishing software.
2) Not all foundations-behind-open-source-projects use revenues from hosting as their sole source of funding. Notable examples include the Blender Foundation and the Linux Foundation.
2) Not all foundations-behind-open-source-projects use revenues from hosting as their sole source of funding. Notable examples include the Blender Foundation and the Linux Foundation.
Sure, I don't see where in my comment I imply this is a problem for all open source communities, just that it's a problem for the type of open source community John seems to want Ghost to be (no intellectual property, making revenue via providing services).
For #1, that is the kind of logic that works fine for the early adopters, but frustrates and turns away the people who just want e.g. a Substack that won't squeeze them for login walls or a Wordpress that is easier to use. I've seen a lot of non-technical people in that bucket turned away recently by Ghost (Pro)'s opaque and confusing member-based hosting costs. It makes it completely impractical to run a free email newsletter, and plenty of other Ghost providers seem to have this worked out. So all it takes is one of those competitors breaking through to achieve name recognition and get a lucky roll of the marketing dice to overtake Ghost in revenue. And then they can fund their own fork and the Ghost community is forced to agree to their development wishes or become outpaced by their proprietary features. It's a pretty bad place to be in.
For #1, that is the kind of logic that works fine for the early adopters, but frustrates and turns away the people who just want e.g. a Substack that won't squeeze them for login walls or a Wordpress that is easier to use. I've seen a lot of non-technical people in that bucket turned away recently by Ghost (Pro)'s opaque and confusing member-based hosting costs. It makes it completely impractical to run a free email newsletter, and plenty of other Ghost providers seem to have this worked out. So all it takes is one of those competitors breaking through to achieve name recognition and get a lucky roll of the marketing dice to overtake Ghost in revenue. And then they can fund their own fork and the Ghost community is forced to agree to their development wishes or become outpaced by their proprietary features. It's a pretty bad place to be in.
> 1) Many people or orgs who are aligned with Ghost and want it to succeed long-term will be okay with paying a bit more for hosting on Ghost(Pro); they might see the extra cost as paying for the continued existence and development of their publishing software.
Or the number of customers who would pay an $X premium to have "Ghost(Pro)" over another host (at the same features) will be roughly equal to the number of people who would spontaneously donate $X anyway. We have ample evidence that affection isn't enough to keep FOSS financed unless the developers are very visible and the ratio of developers to users is very low.
Or the number of customers who would pay an $X premium to have "Ghost(Pro)" over another host (at the same features) will be roughly equal to the number of people who would spontaneously donate $X anyway. We have ample evidence that affection isn't enough to keep FOSS financed unless the developers are very visible and the ratio of developers to users is very low.
> I don't think Ghost is providing any new solutions here—they've just gotten lucky / been small enough to not be out-competed in their hosting niche yet.
While I agree with most of your comment, I do want to point out that intentionally targeting to be small/niche is a kinda solution in itself. To me SourceHut is another good example of how being small can be winning move. Being sustainable with <50 employees is far more manageable even if you face some competition, than if you have >1000 employees.
While I agree with most of your comment, I do want to point out that intentionally targeting to be small/niche is a kinda solution in itself. To me SourceHut is another good example of how being small can be winning move. Being sustainable with <50 employees is far more manageable even if you face some competition, than if you have >1000 employees.
Fair! In this case though I meant small in terms of adoption—it looks like there are some alternative Ghost hosting providers, but none of them really have name-brand recognition in the same way Ghost does, and even Ghost is one small player in the "non-Wordpress subscription blog / mailing list" space. But a lot of my comment comes from watching the Redis / AWS Valkey split as well—even if Redis stayed as a smaller team instead of trying to compete with the hyperscalers, they'd still be stuck in the same catch-22—watching their revenue dwindle to zero while AWS and GCP competed on proprietary platform features.
Would they? There are people who would never pay for AWS/GCP; and there are also people who are willing to pay higher prices for better support and very latest features.
Had Redis stayed small, they would have a smaller slice of income.. but it is entirely possible that even that smaller slice of income would be more than enough to sustain the company.
Had Redis stayed small, they would have a smaller slice of income.. but it is entirely possible that even that smaller slice of income would be more than enough to sustain the company.
What strikes me about Ghost's story is that if they hadn't failed to get in to YC[0], they probably would have failed for real, because eventually the VCs would have come calling and they're obviously not a unicorn.
Instead, they have a successful organization providing a livelihood for almost 50 people, and real value to countless more.
[0]: https://john.onolan.org/a-decade-after-being-rejected-by-yc/
Instead, they have a successful organization providing a livelihood for almost 50 people, and real value to countless more.
[0]: https://john.onolan.org/a-decade-after-being-rejected-by-yc/
There are so many solid business ideas that take VC money, turn out not to be unicorn potential, and crash and burn, where a slower, sustainable growth might work just fine.
Gumroad is a famous example.
Gumroad is a famous example.
breck(3)
I just post on X. Get paid for it too!
How much do you get out per month?
Depends on how much energy you put into it...
But for my own experience of someone who isn't trying to be a content creator, I just have monetization turned on because I may as well get paid for the time I'm gonna be on there, which I would do regardless... I'm taking home about $50/mo for my $8/mo investment.
If i have anything that goes off, obviously more. I got approved for monetization in March of this year, and so far with a few viral posts and regular usage, I've made about $1200 this year on the platform.
But for my own experience of someone who isn't trying to be a content creator, I just have monetization turned on because I may as well get paid for the time I'm gonna be on there, which I would do regardless... I'm taking home about $50/mo for my $8/mo investment.
If i have anything that goes off, obviously more. I got approved for monetization in March of this year, and so far with a few viral posts and regular usage, I've made about $1200 this year on the platform.
This is the model that most tech companies who say they are founded on the basis of "helping the world to do X" should adopt. Major Kudos to the Ghost founders for actually following through on their ideals rather than playing lip service to them until the big money flows in, like so many others. And you know, this model is not for everyone and that's fine, but if you're not planning on following through then drop the bullshit idealism from the start and just plainly come out with "we're here to make as much money as possible". (Looking at you, Altman, and many others.)
It’s been a dream. The core product for that site is a daily newsletter. On ghost it gets higher opens rates and more engagement than via the previous email backend. Build is far simpler too.
The clincher for me for Ghost(Pro) is that if you use your own hosted version of Ghost you need to plug into something else for sending email newsletters - which for the number of subscribers in this instance for a daily newsletter plus weekly wrap-up would cost a fortune. With Ghost(Pro) it’s all wrapped in. And their support is superb.