If I understood it well enough, the intention was to formalize/standardize self-hosting such that it became easier (and with an emphasis on security).

With that done well, perhaps the next step would have been ready-made images. I could see it reducing friction for people if they'd rent a VPS, upload an ISO/IMG, and the resulting system was reliably secure. Then they'd use the Sandstorm interface to install apps with a web GUI.

There is still a roadmap documented here:

https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/tree/master/roadma...