The waste in starting off self hosted is the loss of money. The majority in the blogging world are failures, for one reason or another. So far I’ve spent less than $200 on my blog, but if I had spent that money and lost interest in 2 weeks, I’d be sorry I wasted my time and money. At least with a free blog, you lose only time. (For some perspective, I’ve wrote about 5 different blogs, my current one is the only one I stuck with, the others would have been a waste if I hadn’t used a free host.)

Yup, i got you point but i beg to differ. You can have self hosted by just $1 a year (of course there is limitation in it), but i think it is enough to start a self hosted blog. And if you bore — you can sell it or just park it — or you can just leave it. Only $1 a year, right? . Btw, that’s right you will not regret if abandon the free blog but you may regret it when you really serious of it.

To your second point, again, when you’re just starting out and using comments and social media to promote your blog, you have a lot of time since you have little administrative worries, you pretty much write and promote through free methods till you can expand (at least that’s what I did). I admit, a free hosted blog of similar caliber to yours would be much less popular, but that doesn’t mean everyone should buy a domain and a year of hosting when they start a blog as a knee jerk reaction to reading a success story.

Again — i get your point. Honestly, i do your way — this blog’s first time expenses is from my free blog (my blogspot blog exactly). But later, i aware that if my blogspot blog start directly in self-hosted blog, the earning should at least two times then current earning. That’s why i said i regret it.

For your third point, if you’re worrying about advertisers your first month, you’re way ahead of yourself. For one, advertisers don’t care if your blog is self hosted but has nothing but a home page. Any quality advertiser wants you to have page hits, good design and content. Self hosted will help you get this, but when you’re one month in(or more), you don’t have anything an advertiser wants.

Nop — i do not worry about advertisers in first month but i worry about my blog future — worry that i can not get the optimum advertiser even my free blog already become a great blog because of free blog things. And you right that if you only blog for one month than free blog is enough.

Besides that, you mention seriousness, credibility, reputation and money. The first three can be attained with a free blog, though it may take more work. As far as money, I have no idea what you’re talking about, someone could look at my blog and have no idea how much was put into it, I don’t see how it has an effect on loyal readership.

Yup, it can be attained with free blog but there is some physiological thing that it is hard to take serious of free things — other people (reader and advertiser) also hard to take serious about free blog and it make that credibility and reputation also hard to attain. As for money, i mean earning — it is surely clear enough base on my reply about advertisers.

In the end, popular blogs are self hosted because they offer more creative freedom, options, databases, mailing lists, etc. Choose your hosting based on your needs, not your expectations, at least when you first start.

And you can have all of those benefits for cheap as i said before. There is self-hosted packet that cost only $1 per year — and you can always upgrade or move to better web hosting if you become serious.

And in the end, i understand all of your reasons, and i think it is right. And i just give another point of view here.

To your second point, again, when you’re just starting out and using comments and social media to promote your blog, you have a lot of time since you have little administrative worries, you pretty much write and promote through free methods till you can expand (at least that’s what I did). I admit, a free hosted blog of similar caliber to yours would be much less popular, but that doesn’t mean everyone should buy a domain and a year of hosting when they start a blog as a knee jerk reaction to reading a success story.

For your third point, if you’re worrying about advertisers your first month, you’re way ahead of yourself. For one, advertisers don’t care if your blog is self hosted but has nothing but a home page. Any quality advertiser wants you to have page hits, good design and content. Self hosted will help you get this, but when you’re one month in(or more), you don’t have anything an advertiser wants.

Besides that, you mention seriousness, credibility, reputation and money. The first three can be attained with a free blog, though it may take more work. As far as money, I have no idea what you’re talking about, someone could look at my blog and have no idea how much was put into it, I don’t see how it has an effect on loyal readership.

In the end, popular blogs are self hosted because they offer more creative freedom, options, databases, mailing lists, etc. Choose your hosting based on your needs, not your expectations, at least when you first start.

Once you are feeling serious I think it’s a great idea to move to a self hosted blog rather than something through blogger or another free blog option. It gives you a lot more freedom and customizability, but I also think it’s a waste for someone who is just starting out.

It think that there are no waste in start a blog by use self-hosted. You surely learn much by just use it.

I spent a few months writing on a blogger blog, it wasn’t spectacular, but it got a fair amount of hits. SEO is great, but people seem to see it as the only way to get traffic. Actively promoting your blog through social networks, comments on other blogs and guest posts can land you decent traffic and produce plenty of loyal readers.

Yup — you surely can get a lot of traffic trough social networking or by commenting — i already did it exactly. But — beside it consume much my time, my blog surely defeat by same quality blog only because this blog use self hosted blog.

As far as people disregarding a free blog, I think it’s all about the look. If you’re blog looks like a premade, popular cookie cutter design that blogger offers, it might turn people away. But if you can make your free blog look good and provide great content, there’s no reason people wouldn’t read your blog. Any reader who cares that much about hosting, isn’t the kind of reader I’d want.

No — i do not think it is only about looks. It is also about seriousness, credibility, reputation, and money. Readers may still read your free blog but advertiser surely choose another blog which is self hosted. But of course, a free blog which has outstanding popularity is an exception — but i rare see this kind of blog.

I spent a few months writing on a blogger blog, it wasn’t spectacular, but it got a fair amount of hits. SEO is great, but people seem to see it as the only way to get traffic. Actively promoting your blog through social networks, comments on other blogs and guest posts can land you decent traffic and produce plenty of loyal readers.

As far as people disregarding a free blog, I think it’s all about the look. If you’re blog looks like a premade, popular cookie cutter design that blogger offers, it might turn people away. But if you can make your free blog look good and provide great content, there’s no reason people wouldn’t read your blog. Any reader who cares that much about hosting, isn’t the kind of reader I’d want.

But regarding the free blogs ..

It’s a Heaven for the Newbies
And a Kingdom for the Dons