There seem to be a million people setting themselves up to sell hosting but who is buying?

It seems to me that all the kids out there are going to put their personal sites on a free host.
Larger companies would have a professional site and probably their own server.
Web designers likely have their own server or reseller account for their client's sites.
Small businesses trying to make a site with Front Page are likely to go for the overpriced hosting offered by their ISP, because they don't know any better.

Who is left?

Originally posted by Lucifer
Who is left?

Lots of people.
For example, someone who has been hosting their site at a free webhost, and has enough traffic to pay for its own hosting.
Or someone who realises they're being screwed by their ISP?

Or just people that need hosting?! :rolleyes:

Families are going strong. They get their own family website and use their familyname as domainname. Then they get emails like dad@familyname.com, mom@familyname.com kid1@familyname.com etc etc.

Second group is the small businesses. No self respecting business site is going to get free hosting and show other peoples ads on their site.

Families maybe, although I suspect most would go for Yahoo or similar so they can post pictures, have a guestbook (bletch) etc.

I make sites for small businesses. Most of them are too computer illiterate to set up their own email, let alone cgi scripts.

That seems to leave a lot of kids who have the fond idea that they can make a "Buffy" fan site and make money selling banner ads (ha ha). These people would make terrible customers because their intention is to generate huge bandwith.

Originally posted by Lucifer
Families maybe, although I suspect most would go for Yahoo or similar so they can post pictures, have a guestbook (bletch) etc.

I make sites for small businesses. Most of them are too computer illiterate to set up their own email, let alone cgi scripts.

That seems to leave a lot of kids who have the fond idea that they can make a "Buffy" fan site and make money selling banner ads (ha ha). These people would make terrible customers because their intention is to generate huge bandwith.

Well, hosting companies seem to be getting customers from somewhere, why question it?

Originally posted by Lucifer
That seems to leave a lot of kids who have the fond idea that they can make a "Buffy" fan site and make money selling banner ads (ha ha). These people would make terrible customers because their intention is to generate huge bandwith.

Yup, got those too. www.buffyworld.com. 7000 unique visitors a day, 10 GB datatransfer daily and growing. Wouldn't call the customer a kid though. And definatly not a terrible customer. The more bandwith consumed, the more revenue collected.

But like XL said...why question it? Do you think that there are actually no customers and this whole webhostingbusiness is a scheme and we are all into make-believe? :D

Seriously, people are sick of ad banners and pop-ups that bother their visitors.

They have money and they are willing to pay for an ad-free site.

Basically anyone who needs cutom CGI, PHP, MySQL, a domain name, etc. These are generally not offered for free services, or if offered, I would be weary of the service I'm getting.

I think many people choose independent hosting vs. ISP hosting. I host with hosting matters, after I shut down my business, I retained my account and am now converting the site to a personal web page. I also donate some of the web space to a couple organizations.

Remember, that if web design firms, consultants, etc. have reseller accounts on XYZ hosting's server, it's just as good as ifXYZ had the account.

Also, now that hosting is easy to find (almost too easy given the # of scams), many people do a quick google search and land the first one they find that's in their budget.

Originally posted by NetXL
Well, hosting companies seem to be getting customers from somewhere, why question it?
So you know where to advertise.

Well nobody mentioned people like me. I make my websites as a hobby and don't want anything on my sites that I personally didn't put there.

Originally posted by Intelligent Hosting

So you know where to advertise.

True.

There's a massive range of people that need hosting. If you're advertising, your best bet is to probably just hit the directories, web dev forums/websites, hosting forums etc.

Originally posted by Lucifer
...Small businesses trying to make a site with Front Page are likely to go for the overpriced hosting offered by their ISP, because they don't know any better...

This may be normal for some but not for myself. I run a small business that has never once run off of a free hosting service or my ISP's options. Mainly because I didn't want to have some long URL like http://www.comcast.net/people/~spcindex.html. Plus, I know a lot about hosting but definitely wouldn't say I am in any way an expert. I have a lot to learn, hence the reason I come around here.

Originally posted by Lucifer
I make sites for small businesses. Most of them are too computer illiterate to set up their own email, let alone cgi scripts.

I agree with this somewhat. I also help other small companies setup their Internet presence and most of the people I've dealt with don't know enough to do this on their own. If they did, they wouldn't use my company. However, I also have a few customers that know quite a bit and just don't want to handle that part of their business. It can go both ways. I'm glad that you used words like likely and most because you obviously know that it is not all small businesses that are run this way.:)

I make sites as a hobby, and collect a bit of cash from them. I go for reseller plans so I can have *@allmydomains.com and can use cgi/ssi/php and wayyyy more bandwidth than my freebie ISP account allows. Geocities and the like have annoying popups and banners and flash ads so I stay away from the. I also host a few of my friend's sites too. :)

I just plain do NOT want pop-ups or banners on my site. I don't care if it is free. it is an intrusive pain in the rump, and as far as kids paying for hosting. seems alot of the kids i run across like the idea of "owning" their own site. which is how they feel when they pay for it. anymore seems hosting comes cheap even when boughten.

plenty of people want shared hosting. Our tribe consists of

web designers,
families,
music bands,
small-medium businesses,
private sites (weblogs etc),
directories,
software developers,
newspaper sites,
product advertising,
fan sites,
church sites etc

(just running quickly through the domain list, picking the ones I know)

Developing one now that's going to have the customers short films on it.

There's a lot of people from all walk of life looking for hosting still. I'm still trying to find out why people think shared hosting is a dead industry. Saturated or not, there's still people signing up.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by akashik
...I'm still trying to find out why people think shared hosting is a dead industry...

If it weren't for shared hosting, I wouldn't have a domain, website, etc. and most of my customers that do wouldn't either. At the moment, I can't justify going dedicated.

I buy hostings...

I run a few sites that I will not shamlessly plug..

Site that hosts all of the photos from my weekly parties (Password protected to protect the guilty)

A gubernatorial site (Person for Govorner of the State of SomeState) that receives approx 1300 hits a day.

A general disccussion site for polictially active students for the state I live in