Blast from the past, wow. Yeah, that post is nearly 8 years old! As Bas and others have shared, we do not currently require a credit card to spin up a site. As Moin pointed out, we also have a free plan!
And Nate shared our current stance (as opposed to my ancient comment) from the sign up page itself. No credit cards required by default. We retain the ability to require one should we see an uptick in spam or other issues.