Just wondering would you buy from a company that offered really cheap hosting but no support other than a forum where you can speak to other users?

I see a lot of the bigger companies who offer support plans as an add-on to base accounts. Perhaps if it was offered that way.

But on the other hand, there are simply some support issues that really must be handled by the provider at no charge. Determining which issues would be covered and which issues would not will lead to a very 'grey' area IMO.

Even if no support was offered that would be no excuse for supplying something that didnt work.

It would probably just attract spammers, as if there isn't support, there probably aren't as many people monitoring the servers. Also, spammers are just looking for the cheapest possibility, so they would thrive on this.

Paying a year upfront would probably put them off

Most spammers do not pay at all :)

What if there is a problem with the control panel? Emails? FTP? ...and no support? I don't think so.

i think what allan is talking about is, if everything worked in joy, emails system was OK...httpd ok etc..nothing "internal"

u cant get around that of course, but if you were to offer no "basic" support like "how do i...." kinda support...

nuke.to did that before they went under...I believe no-support hosting works best with the freeloaders, not with pay customers.

discount-hosting is doing this right? wonder how they're doing........

Alan, I think there are two ways to accomplish this:

[list=1]
Launch www.craphost.com with banners stating "we take pride in not answering any email"
Only answer emails with questions about "httpd doesn't work".
[/list=1]

I am pretty sure you don't want #1.
If you try #2 you will have a hard time to look into each email and to decide if it is allowed to answer it or not.
Just a small example: "my site is down" - we all know what this could mean: httpd down, DNS not propagated, no index file,....

I would certainly consider it strongly. But I'm from the school of thought which advocates blocking *@aol.com from most of the internet.

As I see it, web hosting companies should provide web hosting. If there is some problem with the service they are providing (eg a server not working), they should fix it. But they should feel no obligation to help lusers who can't RTFM, or idiots with broken cgi scripts.

Originally posted by cperciva
As I see it, web hosting companies should provide web hosting. If there is some problem with the service they are providing (eg a server not working), they should fix it. But they should feel no obligation to help lusers who can't RTFM, or idiots with broken cgi scripts.

I don't agree.
Web hosting is attracting more and more new customers with less experience and it is changing into a more service oriented business.
If you tell a customer RTFM he will go.

What kind of webhosting company doenst offer support? That is just crap.

Originally posted by Walter
Web hosting is attracting more and more new customers with less experience and it is changing into a more service oriented business.

Yes, there are more and more new customers; I don't dispute that, and I'm not saying that there isn't a large market for host which provide handholding.

But there are also people who know what they are doing; why don't hosts exist which cater specifically to that niche?

Originally posted by cperciva
But there are also people who know what they are doing; why don't hosts exist which cater specifically to that niche?

Not everyone fits into the categories LAMP-guru or I-know-nothing, most are somewhere in between. Such a host would attract many people who think they know a bit and try to lower their costs. When you receive your first hundred emails about something not working you will start wondering which you should answer and which not -> www.craphost.com
:)

I would view a host who offered no support as trouble waiting to happen.........it may not be of course thats just my view

I agree with allot of this,
If you are selling hosting to clients, you should support them 100%, as there are allot of new people that want websites but have not much knowledge.

I have just had 2 signups that wanted new sites but didn't really know how to go about it, so I helps them with their pages and even installed their scripts for them.
They are now very happy and have signed up for the year,
I have been giving ongoing support to them and all other customers for all the questions they ask, and believe me they don't half chuck you a load of questions.

After all if you want to run a successful business you need to offer good services.

Anyway that’s just my opinion.

Maybe I should register craphost.com and see what response I get. ha!!!

cperciva DOES make a good point.
As wide open as this industry is...I guess it could be considered, everything else sure has...thats for sure!!
not for us though :)

That's bull****: no support :confused:
What are you supposed to do if your site is down? Go party? :D

Believe me; this sucks...

There are those gurus though that never need support, very few maybe but they do exist.
I think the point of the thread was just to get opinions on whether or not it would work or what sort of interest one would have for it.
I think there are some companies that run this way, but I cant remember any names but one comes to mind that I thought we had heard about here at WHT....their whole system was completely automated and no support offered?
I guess I prefer the old fashion way --> good communication is the key :blush:

Originally posted by Martie
I think there are some companies that run this way

*****?

personally i think its a good idea as long as the customer knows they will not get help before they pay.

Support is the key to be successful in hosting business.
If a hosting company offers no support for paid hosting, they should not be in business.
There are tons of factors where a customers will need support, like email problems (main), path to scripts, control panel, FTP etc.
A help or FAQ section is improtant to offer hosting for your clients.

Just my thoughts.


Regards

Along with fast servers and reliability, support is -- in my opinion -- one of the most important aspects of web hosting! Even if you do not need support much, it's good to know that if you ever have problems which you can not solve on your own, you can be sure of a fast helpful response from your hosting company's support team. :)

www.discount-hosting.com offers no Email Support at all, but they do have support in their forum.

Believe it or not, I've found them the cheapest, yet very reliable host I've ever found. The only draw back is that they have no CGI supported. The only reason I left them was because they had no other plan that give more than 5GB transfer bandwidth.

i wouldnt let scottish tight fistedness get in the way of running a business properly, unless your running a free service your going to have to offer support. it takes no time to write support emails and answer ims, the only way it takes any time is if there is a fundamental problem with your system or you arent good enough at diagnosing problems and assimilating information from your clients.
all hosts spend ages typing polite replies to how do i change my email password style requests, thats why you get paid money. some bright ones have polite cut and paste replies and or a knowledge base.
even if i never used it, i would never buy anything that didnt come with support.
i think the vast majority of people wouldnt use a no support service, maybe making support email only and extra support at extra cost. good support can easily be offered at a reasonable cost if you are knowledgeble and skilled in dealing with clients.

Originally posted by .::DefCon::.
What are you supposed to do if your site is down? Go party? :D

I think that by "no support" the original poster meant "support for server problems, but no handholding for newbies".

If the server was down, I'm sure it would get fixed promptly; if for some reason you typed `chmod 600 index.html`and then complained about getting permission denied errors, they wouldn't waste time explaining that Apache needs to be able to read files in order to serve them.

Originally posted by Martie
I think there are some companies that run this way, but I cant remember any names but one comes to mind that I thought we had heard about here at WHT....their whole system was completely automated and no support offered?

You're probably thinking of bsdwebhosting.net; I wrote all the code for it over the course of a few months when I decided it would be an interesting idea and wanted to prove to myself that it was possible.

I'd mention that the code is still for sale, except that I'm not allowed to do that here. :D

Originally posted by richy
it takes no time to write support emails and answer ims,

*boggle*

I've met people who can type quickly, but to write support emails in *no time* is really amazing. How do you do it?

Seriously, each individual email might not take a huge amount of time, but it all adds up.

(Side note: What the industry really needs is reasonably intelligent reply-bots which can fish through a collection of FAQs to try to provide a useful answer. Rather like Paypal has, except actually *providing useful answers*.)

Wow, you are asking for trouble my friend.
Support is one of the key factors of the success of the hosting company.
Let's see a good hosting company has
1) Very good Servers
2) A very fast Connection
3) Very attractive prices
4) Very good support.

These are the minimum one must look for.... :)

Have a great day :)

Regards
Amar

A customer should not expect hand holding, unless they're paying for it.

How many web hosting companies mean "hand holding" when they list that technical support is available?

I think very few intend to advertise "hand holding", but most end up doing it a little, as long as it doesn't get carried away.

If someone doesn't have the time to read the manual or FAQ, then someone else should be put in charge of managing their site. I guarantee that it takes longer to wait an hour or two for me to cut and paste from the manual for an email reply than it would have been for them to have just started there.

I'll help a customer if it's something little, and they're not abusing the service, but the customer should not be demanding free hand holding.

I hope that I'm not out of line when I say that the web hosting industry means this, when they say "technical support".

"Our technical support department can only provide assistance regarding the operational status of your web space and email. We can also answer questions regarding the functionality of the web and email servers. However, we generally will be unable to assist you with the publishing of your web site, the configuration of ftp or email clients, or the back end programming of your site, unless it is done under contract."

So should the customer expect anything beyond that? No.

Will they get anything beyond that? Only because we're friendly. :)