@traktion answered, but here’s a simple version: because no data can be updated.
If you view my WP site of the Web, you cannot modify my data, so why would you want to use any kind of DB, and especially NOSQL?
(In discussion above “single user WP” was used as example of a personal app, although it wouldn’t be actually useful).
Most WordPress websites allow visitors to modify them (e.g leave a comment), these days most websites support visitors creating content one way or another, it’s web 2. I don’t see a move back to web 1.
How these features are supported on SAFE, where the boundaries will be drawn around ownership of collaborative content and payment for its storage is an interesting question! I hadn’t considered that at all!
Example: Website owners won’t want to pay for spam comments, but users may not want to pay to comment either.
Yes, this is the challenging bit as I see it. I outlined above a technique which could be used, where the site owner provides a sequence and posters choose the next free one to put data to. This way, the posters would have autonomy to post messages, but it would be a put as their own storage and just linked from the blog.
This would allow the blog owner to detach bad comments and as each post is a put, spam would be deterred too (as it would cost the poster).
I would be interested to know how to go about this technically, but it sounds like a problem that can be solved.
I think if any it has to be the 1st, because otherwise its money =speech=power and a restriction on free speech. 
Now you cannot block blogs that “follow” yours (I’m talking about the classical WP) but you don’t have to link to them, while pingbacks contain links.
With WP on MaidSafe the owner would have to pay for pingbacks, so to speak, as he’d have to update his content.
More likely - and this is where the dreaded marketing and data mining crap comes in - this could be “sponsored” by a Discuss or Google like entity who would pay for such stuff for you as long as you include a crappy JavaScript file in your site and it would dynamically load your pingbacks from Google.
And maybe show and ad or 13.
Sadly that may be lucrative and thanks to the subsidies it may even work.
There are free ways to do it (reputation networks, etc.), but like the current web, it’s tough to monetize those approaches. Not everyone wants to show ads or sell Analytics data to Google, but most do.
Considering the size of a plain-text comment, then you really have nothing worthwhile to say anyway. You’d most likely have to spend far less than a dollar to comment for a year, even if you are a busy daily commenter.
Yeah, the cost should be vanishingly small, but would likely deter spammers from bulk canvassing.
If you don’t have a dollar, you don’t have a voice. We are all about giving those without a voice a chance to earn a dollar aren’t we - not taxing speech?
Can’t spam just be removed, or the spammer blocked, if it’s definitely spam, as you say, the cost is small and maybe better borne by the app developer?
Maybe a pro free speach charity could help those unable to find the (likely) pennies per month. We are talking truly tiny amounts of data here - if you can afford access to the internet, this cost will be a drop in the ocean in comparison.
Or maybe an anti-free speech charity could help those able to find the (likely) pennies per month. If you can afford to build/host an app, this cost will be a drop in the Ocean.
At the end of the day if the app charges to comment, then I’m sure it will quickly be superceded by one that doesn’t.
Also, don’t forget micro payments. We’ll likely see “Like” (or “Tip”) buttons under comments, just like on this forum, but then clicking it gives a configurable amount of SafeCoin (default at 1?) to the poster. So if you have something useful or important to say now and then, you’ll most likely easily earn back the costs and make a little profit.
Nice… I think I’d probably just go with that, and app still not charging myself. Just because you may be charged for saying things others don’t like, plus I don’t think it would be good business sense to charge.
Nothing is stopping app developers paying either.
but, but… those without money to tip will have a smaller voice… Etc, etc.
I am sceptical that dropbox could be useful in this fashion, it offers no advantages that I can see. MAIDSAFE however has both speed and anti-censorship advantages. Incorporate a system like namecoin or the NXT alias system (with browser plugin) into MAIDSAFE and now you can surf MAIDSAFE the way you surf the web.
I use Wordpress for multiple reasons -as a professional web developer I use it to build sites very quickly. As an entrepreneur I use it to build business sites, and as a personal soapbox I find it fits the bill too.
I can see it working now (almost - would need some code tweeking) with an alias system and using a caching plugin that outputs static pages (e.g. WP-super-cache). Sure comments and forums and the like wouldn’t be possible, but as a censorship-proof platform for sharing ideas, wordpress would be fantastic. Simply export your existing site and then import it into another wordpress instance hosted on your own computer that outputs static pages to MAIDSAFE. Could be used as a hard backup in case your normal internet site is taken down.
The great thing IMO, is that there is a huge base of wordpress users who know how to run wordpress sites, so being able to offer a means for them to jump over to MAIDSAFE without having to learn a new way of doing everything they already do would be a major coup.
If I’m not mistaken such a system is planned to be part of the MaidSafe core already. Surfing MaidSafe like the web will be possible, but then using protocol safe: instead of http:
Oh, I am not saying it is as good as safe net will be. I am just pointing out that static content can be saved to a dropbox virtual drive and can then be browsed publicly.
I just googled to see if there are tools to help with dropbox sites and there are. I haven’t tried either, but they may work with safe net too with a little tweaking: https://pancake.io http://droppages.com
Ofc, safe will be distributed, encrypted, etc but the principal is the same - provide tools to create static file which can be rendered as dynamic content in a browser.
(Obviously posting comments, visitor data etc is another challenge though)
More static site creators here: https://www.staticgen.com
I think this is interesting, but static websites are like going back to silent movies. Quaint 
I guess one way to handle it is by creating apps that provide dynamic features that can be bolted on (e.g. using a URL) to websites that are generated statically. This has the advantages a) that tools & features can be created & added piecemeal, and b) they could be integrated into any static website no matter how it was generated, and by modifying a static generator, the features could be inserted automatically into websites that were originally built with equivalent features (old internet, e.g. WordPress, Droopal etc CMS).
Its another way of bridging the gap until suitable SAFE API equivalents are built that can support today’s web 2 features.
We’ll take your word for it… 
Static files are not the same thing as static websites. You can have a dynamic site driven by static content and have a great user experience.
For example, you can have a json file act as a database which the client browser can query/filter at run time using javascript. Moreover, these json files could contain links to other files, which can also be retrieved dynamically at run time by the browser. Therefore, you could have nested data structures, so you could just download the subset you need, based on the application requirements.
You could also have a chain of documents, acting as a linked list for a primary index page. When you scroll to a certain point, it would load in the next, then the next and so on.
You could quite easily have a dynamic site, loading content on demand, using purely JavaScript, static html and static json files with a modern web browser. It would just require some client side tooling to help you create these file/data structures to suit.
I haven’t researched what current statically generation tools are out there beyond posting the above, but I understand the technology well and can see a lot of scope for getting good results.