There's no way a typical end user is going to know how to deploy an open-source Ruby on Rails application.
Although I really dislike PHP, I feel like it would be more appropriate because at least some technology enthusiasts are comfortable with uploading some PHP files and running a web based installer even though they aren't programmers.
Realistically, there's no way a typical end-user is going to deploy their own seed at all. I suspect they know this, as suggested by the fact that they plan to build a hosting service. (I presume that's how they're planning to monetize this, long term?) Anything that requires active system administration or application deployment by the end user is going to fail.
IMHO, I'd consider language/framework choice to be the least of their concerns; they picked something they knew, and moved on to more pressing issues.
Comments
There's no way a typical end user is going to know how to deploy an open-source Ruby on Rails application.
Although I really dislike PHP, I feel like it would be more appropriate because at least some technology enthusiasts are comfortable with uploading some PHP files and running a web based installer even though they aren't programmers.
Edit: It's also using MongoDB, interesting.
Realistically, there's no way a typical end-user is going to deploy their own seed at all. I suspect they know this, as suggested by the fact that they plan to build a hosting service. (I presume that's how they're planning to monetize this, long term?) Anything that requires active system administration or application deployment by the end user is going to fail.
IMHO, I'd consider language/framework choice to be the least of their concerns; they picked something they knew, and moved on to more pressing issues.