It's a great theory as long as all those outsourced sites: stay in business, offer you a way to backup your information, don't act like jerks (ex: suddenly killing your account for unknown and unanswerable reasons), don't suddenly change business models and start charging you a lot for what was cheap or something for what was free.
Perhaps there's room in the market for all-in-one local solutions (even if it's the freely-produced-out-of-love market). I'm thinking of something like Wamp for Windows (a complete LAMP stack that you can install from one exe and gives you a simple control panel for the whole thing). Maybe a Linux distro that installs (or gives you options during install) all the packages you might want for a web business - source control, bug tracking, blog, wiki, web server, db, scripting languages, etc) plus configures firewall, backup systems, etc (or guides you through setting up something like that). Or maybe it's not a distro but a HOWTO.
Or maybe that sort of thing already exists and someone wants to link to it :)
GitHub Firewall Install is a turnkey, local GitHub. I'm not into hosting commercial software in private repos on GitHub though. It's periodically down, and that stuff needs to work. And GitHub FI looks pricey.
I think I'm better off with a VPS, gitosis, and local backups. It's cheap, it works, and it doesn't matter that I don't have all the cool social networking aspects of GitHub.
It is occasionally down but the whole point of git is that it's distributed, if you need to deploy when github is down you just do it from your local version.
I read the original post as being about more than just git/blog hosting (from the post's point about once hosting email). If it is only about git/blog hosting, GitHub may be wonderful and fill the need perfectly (I haven't used it yet so I can't comment there).
And the point about VPSs is just as true. Things can go wrong with your own boxes hosted in your own space too.
All of these services are great as they allow small startups to get going with less upfront requirements (ex: setting up a physical machine and finding hosting space). It's still important to take consideration on whatever path you choose to avoid getting bitten hard at the worst possible time.
I was thinking about going prgmr. But it took them ~ a month to install more servers and re-open signups. Yes, they're cheap. But I wouldnt trust them for anything production-stage. What if their server fails? Will they replace parts in 1 hour? I think GitHub is much more reliable in this case...
Preconfigured virtual servers? I feel uneasy about cluttering my server with all kinds of unrelated applications anyway. Would be cleaner to have them all in their own sandbox.
Where is the discussion of the whole risk/reward aspect. When I was freelancing I had dreams of building up an entire service agency that I would, some day, sell for millions. I knew the risks of failure were greater but the upside was golden. After 5 years reality struck and with a growing family I tabled my dream I went for a solid corporate job and some stability.
The person in this story took the risk (although her reward is different) and failed. C'est la vie.
Perhaps there's room in the market for all-in-one local solutions (even if it's the freely-produced-out-of-love market). I'm thinking of something like Wamp for Windows (a complete LAMP stack that you can install from one exe and gives you a simple control panel for the whole thing). Maybe a Linux distro that installs (or gives you options during install) all the packages you might want for a web business - source control, bug tracking, blog, wiki, web server, db, scripting languages, etc) plus configures firewall, backup systems, etc (or guides you through setting up something like that). Or maybe it's not a distro but a HOWTO.
Or maybe that sort of thing already exists and someone wants to link to it :)