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$900 a month for a small business website - even one with social features - is like charging $200 for a cinema ticket. In a cost of living crises, with small businesses going to the wall left, right, and centre, most cannot afford this. Which can only amplify the ongoing techlash against the US DataFarmers.
Kiwi companies could offer hosted CMS+domain fees, even onshore these days, for less than half that. Much less. Ideally with ActivityPub plugins for social networking. Just saying ...
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"Meta One ... brings together more AI, advanced business tools, and content and audience insights designed to help grow your business."
#NikDirga, 2026
All the more reason to get off FarceBook because it becomes a steaming pile of enshittified slop - even more than it already is - and they ramp up the lock-in even more (if that's even possible).
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@billbennett Another reason why we should avoid using US based big-tech. The tech billionaires are getting richer. The rest of us are getting poorer.
Great comments, Bill.
H-ck, $900 could pay for a pretty good website and hosting for a small business.
Wouldn’t mind if all the orgs I host for paid me that monthly. I could retire immediately!
@futuresprog I actually said you could expect to get plenty of change from $900 a month.
How much would it cost to have basic E-commerce functionality as well? (I’m out of touch with prices, must be more than a decade since I last looked).
My own Ghost Pro site has managed hosting, a CMS and sends out newsletters for a few hundred dollars a year. It wouldn’t be appropriate for a food truck. But there are suitable inexpensive packaged options.
Yep, that's exactly it. I was agreeing with your comments in the article.
I have no idea what /market/ prices are (since I am only charging cost of power + amortization of hardware) but I think I heard a friend was ditching Shopify because she couldn't afford $35/mo. What currency would that be?
If USD that would be $62 Kiwi.
@futuresprog
> I think I heard a friend was ditching Shopify
Anyone who doesn't support white supremacy ought to be ditching Shopify ASAP, even if it was free of charge. Even if they *paid* you to use it, it's still the archetypal Nazi Bar;
If people came to me for advice she wouldn't have started her ridiculous store in the first place but those are her decisions that she gets to live with the consequences of.
But on a more positive note, please point me to the turnkey open source alternative store.
@futuresprog
> point me to the turnkey open source alternative store
A replacement for Shopify. Hmm. Not my area of expertise. @lightweight? Anyone else?
@strypey @futuresprog let me know if you find something! If it was me, I'd probably be using the commerce components of some of the CMS platforms, like WordPress and Drupal. But things are about to get very rough for PHP-based technologies...
@billbennett of this parish is quoted in this article;
"Are you running a small business off Facebook and Instagram? It may soon cost you a lot more.
A small business page will now have to pay Meta nearly $900 a month to post unlimited links from their pages."
#NikDirga, 2026
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/2048804/explainer-why-facebook-is-going-to-start-charging-many-new-zealand-small-businesses
Well that's going to change the game.
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#FaceBook #SocialNetworks #WebHosting
Explainer: Why Facebook is going to start charging many New Zealand small businesses