[aercolino]

It surprises me how many replies try to solve a side problem instead of what the OP asks for. The OP doesn't seem a computer illiterate, so no need to educate him on anything.

IMO, he asks: "How does one scale a free web application, money-wise?". For example, "How did they scale Tumblr? [1]".

That's a real mystery for me too. I know they were funded by some big names [2], but that kind of financial support here in Europe is not even a dream.

[1] http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/2/13/tumblr-architectur... [2] http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tumblr

[meowface]

That's because in all likelihood OP was asking the completely wrong question. He has no application yet and no user base, so it's a waste of time to consider these kinds of things when you're trying to create your own application or business.

But of course, if you grow at such a scale where you're getting a lot of users despite investing little money into the product, odds are many venture capitalists and incubators will be interested in you.