[bsimpson]

When Wordpress first came up, PHP was something anyone with $5 could administer, and Python/Ruby required a lot more money and expertise that put them outside the reach of junior hobbyists.

This was before the days of PaaS solutions like AppEngine.

[andix]

I don't know any PaaS solution that is not at least a magnitude more complex than a simple PHP shared hoster.

As much as I hate PHP, the typical LAMP shared hosting is by far the most simple kind of PaaS.