That doesn't change my view on this. You're paying Glitch _nothing_, yet are asking for 19/yr for this product. At the very least, a few users converting can get you a quality VM from Linode or Digital Ocean. Who's currently doing backups? You? Or Glitch.

Glitch wants apps like this to succeed, so will work with him to make sure everything stays running. And Glitch apps are just totally standard Node apps, so worst case he can run it anywhere else. Anything can happen, and there are no guarantees, but I wouldn’t worry about the choice of platforms as a risk.

Source: I’m the CEO of Fog Creek, which makes Glitch, and we’re excited about apps like this one!

How does the Glitch project-to-app mapping actually work? This is writt.glitch.me, so I'd expect it to be accessible at https://glitch.com/~writt and https://glitch.com/edit/#!/writt except neither of those are up.

App creators can choose to make their apps private , which prevents the source being viewed. This is why you can’t access those URLs.

I suppose. I'm just a bit cynical because Glitch is full of these "apps" that feel like a train wreck waiting to happen. jajoosam has a number of services on your platform now, and it's hard to tell if it'll get any updates or support 6-9 months down the line.

Sure, but that’s true of apps on any platform. May be worth a try to state the same concerns about iOS or Android apps and see what the CEOs in charge of those platforms say, then make the call on which you trust.

How about ditching the cynicism and instead praising such a neat service and the enterprising 14 year old who was able to build and rollout a plausible service?

"You're paying Glitch _nothing_, yet are asking for 19/yr for this product"

He is asking for money to cover the expense of his work. That is also a cost, correct?

I don't see the issue. Nobody is forcing Fog Creek to make the glitch service free, that was their own choice - and as long as charging money for your glitch-based service isn't against the glitch ToS, there's no reason not to do so.

Glitch' FAQ says they expect to eventually charge for a premium account with fewer resource restrictions. Glitch' business model is presumably then to get other services off the ground, make those services big enough to start earning significant money, and then have those services upgrade to a paid plan once they (hopefully) both earn enough money to afford it and are big enough to need it.

From what I can see, this Writt thing is doing exactly what glitch's business model wants people to do.

So any paid service should never use another service on its free tier? That’s a strange rule to abide to.

That's right, I'd definitely get a DO droplet if a few users converted, but haven't even had one conversion yet.