They are building social networking software which means that at some point the goal will need to be to get everyone and their mother on board. Because they built the app on Rails, they are now facing an uphill battle with distribution as there are not a lot of places that you can easily setup a Rails site.
I love Rails but for this type of app, it might have helped them gain traction faster if it was built on PHP, or was even just a massive plugin for WordPress.
Now if a lot of people really seem to love Diaspora and demand for Rails hosting increases dramatically, I'm sure hosting providers will take note and increase their commitment to Rails. That would be an ideal situation, but not a likely outcome.
I love Rails but for this type of app, it might have helped them gain traction faster if it was built on PHP, or was even just a massive plugin for WordPress.
Now if a lot of people really seem to love Diaspora and demand for Rails hosting increases dramatically, I'm sure hosting providers will take note and increase their commitment to Rails. That would be an ideal situation, but not a likely outcome.