Show HN: I just launched a new blogging platform

"Yes, it's true, most other blogging platforms are free. We charge money for ours because we want writers, not advertisers, to be our customers."

I have some positive and negative feedback:

"Yes, it's true, most other blogging platforms are free. We charge money for ours because we want writers, not advertisers, to be our customers."

First off, I think this is great. If I were a more serious writer, I think I'd enjoy being on a platform, knowing that other people in the network were also serious writers. The idea of having a blog I'm committed to enough to pay a bit for is appealing to me. I think there might be a market there.

However, what people are saying is correct - the product is overly simple. Before you charge for something, people are going to need to see the advantage over starting a Wordpress blog like everybody else. If the design was elegant and the community (as mentioned above) were proven, I could see asking $9/month.

Apart from that, congrats for having launched. Take the feedback (of all kinds) in stride, listen carefully to what people are saying, and iterate like crazy.

How are you better than posterous with their simplest theme? It is cool to charge, but not for something that takes no effort to do. And if it is important, you can have the most basic wordpress installation (self or company hosted option) for far less the price and far more the confidence in the platform.

Writers get paid to write; they don't pay to get published. Why would they pay you to publish when they could use any other free platform?

Speaking of new blogging platforms, there hasn't been a lot of discussion on HN about SETT. Why not?