It's hard to sell $300/year managed hosting subscriptions to people who just want a blog. This is probably the same reason Automattic switched to an all-inclusive monoplan at $180/year and got rid of any language that suggested it was suitable for personal blogs.
Ghost starts at $9 per month though -- obviously depends on people's circumstances but I would say that's reasonable for many people as a personal blog
I tried it once. It's extremely limited with only being able to use their few built-in integrations and stock themes with no ability to edit them. $108/year is a lot of money to not be able to touch your theme. An extra $72/year will get you wordpress.com with custom theme and plugin support. Drop $3/month and you can get write.as.
