These two problems are related - I don't mind having the final product in public (it's bound to get there eventually) and thus not having to pay too much (or even use the free tier), but putting everything in public before publication is insane and I doubt it will be used for anything but blog posts for that reason.
hi jclos, I don't think that putting out research content out in the open is insane, as you say. While privacy is indeed a good and a safe idea in a number of contexts, for most research projects, sharing the full sources from the very beginning is only advantageous. For example, less secrecy encourages collaboration, rather than competition. Also, it is a way for authors to claim their ideas and work as soon as they have it. Why wait months before getting something published when we have a fast modern content publication system right in front of our eyes? I have a vision, and I may be wrong. But my vision is to use the web to publish and disseminate scientific content: science you can fork, clone, reproduce, and interact with, from the very first word you jot down in a paper, up to the last equation. My hope is that Authorea is a step in the right direction.
I understand, and I agree to some extent, but the truth is that it is too risky.
In my country at least, but I'm sure it is the same for most, researchers survive by putting their quota (fixed by the ministry of research) of publications in well renowned journals. The risk of having someone "steal" your idea (in the very loose definition) and beat you to the publication, for instance by having a bigger research team, thus putting you out of a job, is a real one.
In an ideal world your system would be perfect, putting the advancement of knowledge before everything else (as open source does with software), but researchers have to look out for themselves before all, considering how their performance is evaluated and how that affects their livelihood. Unlike open source software, there aren't a lot of ways to monetize scientific publications. I would enjoy seeing things change, but change is slow to come. Especially in an area as pachydermic and anchored in traditions as academia.
I really like Authorea and I will use it for non-published work, but I feel that limiting private publications so much is going to limit adoption. But then again what do I know, I guess we will see how it goes.
