'From the get go, the product was not task oriented (as in “I want to upload some pictures and do a blog post about it”), but very object-oriented (an hierarchy of folders, with security, objects, drag-and-drop, etc.).'
This clicked for me. Everyone probably knows it already, but I never got it this crisply until now. There is a spectrum between user and programmer. Depending on what you're building, you can build in a lot of leverage for your users by making your tool less programmable. Apple does this the best.
On the other hand, you go to be your own boss and run with something for several years. Frankly, I don't even see what the point of Sampa was. Geocities was around in 1996. Maybe if you had started early enough you could have sold before the business model issues became so critical you weren't able to ignore them, but realistically that was your only exit strategy, much like geocities and youtube.
Geocities WAS around in 1996 - but Weebly was started in 2006/2007, and they're doing quite well, business model and all. The "website builder" space is likely not saturated, and there's definitely room in business areas such as the author was originally targeting. Again, it's all about the implementation.
