WordCamp Jerusalem took place this past Wednesday and welcomed a very nice turnout. I’ll write more at length about the full conference a bit later. What I want to write about now is a not uncommon perception that I encountered during WordCamp.
During one discussion about using WordPress to help change the world, I ventured to mention that WordPress.com could be a solution for non-profits looking to set up a secure site, and was rebuffed by the presenter that WordPress.com (the “c” word) is not a fully developed alternative to running a standalone WordPress install or is something to be used “temporarily” until you can set up a standalone WordPress install in the future.
Of course, developers, who usually are the main participants at WordCamp, have little or no interest in promoting or recommending WordPress.com because they can’t use their coding skills to create a website here and, as a result, can’t earn an income from it. While that may be true, it certainly hasn’t stopped people like Om Malik, Michael Arrington, Dan Ariely, The British Museum, TED Talks, flickr and quite a number of other WordPress.com (and WordPress.com VIP) users, everyone from authors to non-profits to zoologists, from setting up shop here. (Check out the WordPress.com Showcase!)
(If you want to see the reasons why I believe WordPress.com can work for a wide variety of people, you can read my posts here and here.)
Also sadly, many developers are not aware that WordPress.com has a developer resources site for those who want to make apps available to the more than 30 million websites hosted here. Let me repeat that number: 30 million websites. Here, too, I understand devs resistance to creating apps for WordPress.com, which is a for-profit company run by Automattic, and not the open source project of WordPress.
Regardless, I truly feel that while WordPress.com may not be the right solution for absolutely everyone, it is the best solution for everyone else.
WPcomMaven 
I agree with you that WordPress.com would work for non-profits – easy to use – secure – no messing with software updates that you have to pay your developer to do every 6 months or so
Many people loose track of the fact that WordPress.com is a tool as is WordPress.org as are many other ways of getting content onto a web site – none of them work for every application – that is why there are so many different flavors.
A good developer / designer etc. uses the proper tool for the job – just like a good engineer or a carpenter. One size here does not fit all.
Entirely agree with you here, but sadly it seems that WPcom is seen by not a few devs as competition to what they do and I do understand that.
While WordPress.com certainly isn’t for everyone, it makes a lot of sense for many users. After two years with .org, I went back to .com. I wrote about this in Why I use WordPress.com not WordPress.org
If you’ve read my About page, you’ll see that I entirely agree with you.
Just did and clicked the WP follow button. WPcomMaven is a must read for any WordPress.Com user.
Thank you for the compliment. I hope you’ll find useful information here. You may also be interested in checking out the resources I’ve listed in my sidebar if you haven’t already. Cheers!