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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Running servers will become easier. And it could be optional - you can also just get a blog on Wordpress.com after all.
But then it's not self-hosted, and really isn't substantively different than using Posterous, Tumblr, or really even Facebook (provided that Facebook exports notes).
We're never going to convince regular people to run their own Diaspora server. I mean, look at this: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Installing-and-Run... Even Wordpress is increasingly becoming a huge liability for someone who isn't a sysadmin to run. Telling a non-geek friend to use a self-hosted Wordpress install to host their personal blog strikes me as incredibly irresponsible in the same way that jail…
Maintaining a self-hosted WordPress installation is awfully easy since they added the one-click updating for plugins and WordPress itself. I agree that a neglected WordPress install is a liability, but it takes negligible effort to keep later versions of it running smoothly. Even "normals" can handle clicking an update button once in a while when they log into their dashboard to check comments, stats, etc.
Personal publishing where wordpress.com (and posterous, tumblr,etc.) are the best use case.
Professional publishing where Wordpress self installs are the best.
it is just a FUD. Self-hosting can be done in a range of options - starting with your personal webserver on your own home or collocated computer (geek) to the pages personalized with your domain name on some common hosted and managed _open_ platform like wordpress, etc... (regular, non-geek person)
The issue isn't about technicalities of hosting or data portability. It is about content ownership. What FB does is "all you base are belong to us".
My related post on similar issue about giving away reviews to sites likes Yelp http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898945
Edit : this post is actually a reply to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1943861