[CM30]

It's an interesting idea, and I see the appeal if the site is fairly basic, but I think there's one thing people are forgetting here.

You're outsourcing half your site to third parties, and basically letting them do whatever the hell they like with it. Disqus comments? Better hope the people behind that system don't decide to outlaw comments about the thing your website is about. Javascript embedded shop system? Good, so long as you don't need to modify the look very much and don't mind all your data being hosted in a different part of the world (like, the US for people in other regions).

And if they decide that all your data needs to be shared with the NSA or some other government organisation, then tough luck. If they hacked... well, tough luck again.

Without hosting such systems yourself, you're relying on a lot of third parties to be transparent, honest and respectful of your privacy (and that of your visitors). It's basically like a return to the days of free hosting and services like Bravenet.

[SamBam]

Personally, I generally trust a third-party's shop system significantly more than I do something homegrown for a typical small business. Credit card security is hard. Why force everyone to reinvent the wheel?

[CM30]

Most card details are stored by payment processors, not your own server or a third party shop provider's servers. Paypal and Stripe and various others are probably more trustworthy than anything that stores the details with the shop itself.

But that doesn't really apply to a lot of things. Comments for example, do you really trust a third party more with those? Because if your site is in a grey area, then it's very possible their terms/country/whatever might require them to ban discussion of the topic. Self hosted means your rules, not a large corporation's.

Besides, any middleman is the weakest part of the chain if someone wanted to shut down a site or significantly cripple it without going through a court case. You may like controversy, but a large company would rather see the back of anyone that might potentially hurt its public image. We already see issues where internet mobs go after hosting companies and providers based on something someone said on Twitter. Every third party service is yet another potential target for them, and one that could buckle even more easily than the hosting company (especially if you're not paying for their services).