But if I don't, I will never know

 But if I don't, I will never know.

This is the problem with not doing something, the never knowing. Say I was to get web hosting and dive in, and begin releasing stories and interactive fiction there while exploring and drawing an audience. It may lead to something, or it may flounder in obscurity.

I used to run my self-hosted site for Ereaderotica, and if you are mature content and off the Google and Facebook gravy trains, good luck to anyone finding you. The big two search engines are huge, and they are the difference between "working for yourself" and "letting the world know about you."

This is why working on a popular and established site like DeviantArt is so attractive, you begin in a community of artists, and there is traffic and eyes here.

The bad part about DA? No hosted HTML. No one can "try the story" for free. It is a download and a file manager action before you can even run it. On a site where I can host HTML? I can access the root file structure and link HTML pages with embedded stories all I want. If you can get here and follow a link, you can instantly experience the fun without downloading, finding, and clicking on anything. It works from a phone.

But a hybrid model may be best, a small web hosting site to serve links and be the homesite for the WordPress blog and the individual releases, and then have a subscription model here on DA with the whole story downloads. If you are dedicated enough to subscribe, you are likely dedicated enough to do the homework and unzip and install the stories in the collection on your own.

I need to test the ZIP and HTML experience 100% on the phone, especially with an interactive story format. I know phones have file systems, but there are a few subdirectories that go along with that HTML file that need to be preserved for the interpreter to work, so it may get a little tricky with one, or more than one, and the entire experience of saving and reloading a story file. Online, this goes in your cached browser data. I have no idea how a standalone would work in that regard.

This is why I buy capacity; I will never know if I need it if I don't have it. If I don't use it, cancel it and rework my plan. But not having it feels like giving up on the idea entirely. There is nowhere to play and learn. There are no eyes on my work.

Without hosting, ZIP, and release somewhere for free. That may be a better way to start. See if there is interest, and then make those plans.