Code / The Appnel Group 

Making it look easy isn't cheap

Late last week, Henry Blodget posted about an “Awesome Startup Idea” he has for a MT/WordPress as Service business after his group struggled through some system issues. I posted the comment below (with minor edits to add hyperlink) though I was kind of late to the party. (Better late then never!) It’s still pending moderation as I write this and may not ever get posted for all I know, so I thought I’d post it here since it touches on reoccurring themes.

I read this post over the weekend and have been giving it some thought since its touches on a number of topics that are near and dear to my heart.

I’ve had many a day like yours and feel for you and Dan. I’ve been a technologist my entire adult life (and even early) and it really bothers me that when I see technology making people miserable rather then inspiring and helping.

Publishers and readers should not care about what went wrong or how the system works. It simply should. Technology is doing its job if it is transparent and taken for granted. (Hence the catch 22 of my industry — no one really notices your work until you screw up.) I completely agree and you won’t get any argument from me on that point.

What I will argue and call in to question is the realism of your requests as a “hot startup” idea or even a viable business plan.

What I find most frustrating reading your post is not your desires or expectations of technology, but how little value people like yourself put on the knowledge and skills to make technology look easy and work reliability as you wish.

Before I go into that I’d like to point out that MT is not “annoyingly complicated” in the hands of an expert and make no mistake about it, MT is an expert tool. Sure it has its faults and I find my share of annoyances all the time, but in the grand scheme of server software it’s on the easy side. (Now a SAP installation THAT is annoyingly complicated.)

Blogging is easy, maintaining a server is not.

That said, $99 doesn’t cover the infrastructure costs for a system as robust and reliable as what you are asking let alone the costs of any type of support and on-going maintenance. TypePad is so limiting because variety and complexity raises the risk of an outage and the cost of support of maintenance. Without limiting these things, they could not offer any service at such a price.

If I could draw a chart here comparing flexibility/power versus costs, it would be a reverse power-curve. The cheaper the service/software the less flexibility.

Let me pose my point to you another way entirely — is Dan’s time and your frustration worth only worth $99 a month? I would guess that you would say it’s worth a lot more. If not, I’d say you have a pretty low opinion of what you are doing now. (Somehow I don’t think that is the case though.) If it is then I think you are getting a pretty darn good service for the money in TypePad.

When it comes to technology, and especially when hosting and hardware is involved, you get what you pay for. I’ve never seen that not be the case in the medium to long-term. People have moaned that Apple’s hardware is more (too) expensive then what they can get from Dell. They then curse and complain when that computer breaks down or they have problems. More closely to the topic at hand, I’ve heard plenty talk from bloggers about going with hosts like Dreamhost and the like because they are cheaper only to be crying in their beer when their site is dragging and goes down often. (Case in point.)

Occasionally there is a short-term win, but eventually things will catch up to you.

I know because, in addition to nearly 17 years of working in enterprise and Internet technology, I started assembling an offering called Blogcast that offers MT as a service, but the price point is much higher than the $99 or even $300 dollars you quote.

It’s also not anything you can sign-up for online or with a credit card.

What you call ideal differs from the next person and the next after that. I tried packages initially that could have been ordered with a credit card and everyone I heard from wanted something more or custom — every felt they were the exception to the rule. That leaves me wondering if, at this level, the really is a rule. (I haven’t formed an answer.)

I found it amusing that some of those same people that balked at the price for my service then went out and hired someone full-time at a cost at least 4 or 5 times higher than what I quoted and that is before obtaining the necessary hardware, software and hosting assuming their person has the experience and knowledge that I do of building a system with MT. I’ve had a few bitter sweet moments of those same people and their new hires coming back to me and paying my hourly consulting rate for work I would have done as part of the Blogcast service.

Granted my Blogcast pitch could be a lot better then it’s been and I didn’t try every combination of the theme that I could have. (The joys of bootstrapping!) Still, the general lack of appreciation or value most potential customers I spoke to had for what it takes to setup and maintain a robust technology service that you don’t have to care about was pretty clear and gave me pause to ask if “there really is a there there.”

I’m not sure what the answer is here. Is it a matter of education of consumers of such an audience to the costs and trade offers of such a service or is it an idea waiting or a seismic change in technology that will make such a service a viable business proposition?

Whatever the case, it’s frustrating to read posts like this one that place such low value on the knowledge and skills I’ve spent half my life developing like its something you should be able to buy from Amazon with SuperSaver shipping.

I apologize this comment went on so long. There is a lot more I could have said and gladly will discuss it if interested.