Most of the hosts who are against unlimited selling are trying to maintain quality services but high prices. due to right or wrong reasons.

And, most of the hosts which are selling unlimited (including big ones, and even ones not selling unlimited but also big) are selling their packages from pricey standards, like $5 bucks or so a month. (and it even sometimes come at that rate only if you pay 2-3 years in advance).

in the end the whole scene ends up with a mess of packages, plans, you cant weed out what's what easily, and in the end come up rather expensive.



wasnt internet supposed to be 'by the people, for the people' ?

shouldnt access to internet in all respects be easier with a lot of new providers coming into the scene ?

why are we trying to keep our prices up, either by offering quality services or employing various payment plans with or without unlimited offerings ?

wouldnt it be better if a university student could easily, and without any second thoughts about his/her pocket money, buy and maintain a website/hosting account ?

dont come up saying 'hey, $5/mo is not much for a university student', for this is only true in certain parts of the world, AND, it still depends on the well being of the student.

actually it goes valid for every other person.

recently im having these kind of revolutionary feelings. i dont want to just make money. i want to give people back and enable people. cheaper, more accessible.

what are your thoughts in this regard ?

With customer acquisition costs sky high, the polarization you described is quite natural. Hosts will go for the spend as much as necessary on advertising approach, and offer as cheap as possible hosting in order to increase the sales closure ratio, or, at the other end of the spectrum, offer high quality hosting at a high price, wow virtually all customers, and rely on their recommendations to bring in the bulk of new business.

The first type of hosts tends to be really visible and grow almost exponentially, the other tends to be small and grow at a steady, though comparatively unimpressive pace.

A fair or high profit is not there just for the enjoyment of shareholders, it is often what the company needs in order to be competitive in the long term. Growth requires investments.

Long story short there are just too many people out to make a quick buck. I remember back before there were things like plesk and cpanel and whmcs it actually took a lot of effort and KNOWLEDGE to start a web hosting company.

Now nearly anyone can do it. I'm not saying anyone can run one properly and efficiently, but it is certainly easy enough to start one.

The problem is yes, these companies out to just make a quick buck will eventually fail and their clients will become disillusioned. Rightfully so.

It really all comes down to building a good reputation for your own business and hoping that clients do enough of their own research to begin with to find a good host.

If clients don't do their own research and just pick a hosting company based on price, it's really their own fault if they end up getting hosed.

what about the people ?

what about 'by the people, for the people' ?

this is what im asking about.

I'm confused. I'm not making the connection between "by the people and for the people" and the Internet.

the internet has the philosophy of being a 'people's place'.

you know,

everything people couldnt do before, because they are ordinary people, can be done through internet now.

you can take up publishing through various means. practically impossible before without having acceptable budgets. now all you need is good content. you can even grow big enough to be national. with the former tools and environment you would need a decent budget that an ordinary man wouldnt have to go even local.

you can start an online store with a few bucks spending. formerly, even to set up a street side stall, you would need to spend noticeable cash.

people can talk, read, interact almost without no cost, or little costs.

formerly your opinions and views could only be heard by your close circle. now you can deliver it to hundreds of thousands of people through various tools, without having the budget only a senator can have.

you can even be famous with your own effort through youtube and whatnot.

in that sense, internet has enabled people to do things which only the rich or well to do could do without having second thoughts before.

therefore, internet has been much liberating in many respects, it has been a place of 'the people'. and in turn, it was 'the people' enabling the people with their effort, like open source scripts, cheap or free web hosts and so on.

this is the 'the people' aspect im talking about.

There's nothing stopping those people from doing what they want to do. There's tons of free places to get your content online and get people viewing it. Most blogging sites are free.

The 'little guys' are not being oppressed. If anything there are too many of them these days :P

There's nothing stopping those people from doing what they want to do. There's tons of free places to get your content online and get people viewing it. Most blogging sites are free.

The 'little guys' are not being oppressed. If anything there are too many of them these days :P

you miss the point here.

im not talking about 'saving the masses'.

im talking about the general philosophy.

wasnt internet supposed to be 'by the people, for the people' ?

shouldnt access to internet in all respects be easier with a lot of new providers coming into the scene ?

why are we trying to keep our prices up, either by offering quality services or employing various payment plans with or without unlimited offerings ?

It is easier, AOL use to charge 4.95 ish an hour to be online(it got pretty expensive), other services charged per hour too.

You are also comparing two different things kind of. The internet is not just made of webhosts, its made of a lot of other services. You are asking one part(and KINDOF a small part to change, and if you view everyone who buys their hosting package it is small, but thats just my opinion)

The fact is, unlimited has been around since I have been involved in hosting(98) and im sure it was there before that and it wont leave. Also unlimited DOES work well for tons and tons of people believe it or not, because even with all the extras being created(just compare sites now to 10 years ago, or even 5) most sites still get little traffic and use a small amount of space. So its not leaving and it will always be there.

And as a whole, the philosophy you are talking about still stands, I dont see tons of internet users complaning, they get their news, their social networking, their online stores etc, all for a low price and fast access for the most part.

its curious how all web hosts tend to turn any similar discussion into a discussion of unlimited versus limited offerings.

and there you are missing the point.

I think you're missing the point, it sounds like you want to run a 'non-profit' organization for web hosting -- go for it. There were hundreds of free dial-up ISPs back in the day, there's tonnes of free hosting providers now.

Go for it. :)
"For the people, by the people" -- at least until it comes time for someone to cough up for infrastructure costs, support costs, phone support, and legal costs.

If you can't afford paid web hosting then you can always afford free web hosting. And yes, there are plenty of quality free web hosting companies out there. ;)

I think you're missing the point, it sounds like you want to run a 'non-profit' organization for web hosting -- go for it. There were hundreds of free dial-up ISPs back in the day, there's tonnes of free hosting providers now.

Go for it. :)
"For the people, by the people" -- at least until it comes time for someone to cough up for infrastructure costs, support costs, phone support, and legal costs.

aaaah no.

this isnt 'either 1 or 0'.

its as if some of you are taking this oddly defensively.

working with low profit in order to make services accessible for any person with connection to internet does not have a default setting to couse 'infrastructure costs, support costs, phone support and `legal costs`'. the latest one especially rarely materializes and its absurd to even put it there as a scarecrow. it doesnt mean that you will live on birdseed either.

no it isnt like that. the logic is about being a people's service. doing small profit, but accessing much more people.

that is the magic of internet - being accessible. and that is the means of internet to grow itself - having a mass effect.

that's what im talking about.

$3.5 may be negligible for someone in the west. however it is a huge amount of money in a lot of places around the world.

You are aware that there are plenty of options out there for you right?

1) You can run your own web server (albeit not ideal but it's free and good for most project/personal sites).

2) You can use free hosting (yes, I will harp on this because most people overlook this as being a viable option which it is).

3) You can earn money to pay for paid hosting (I know 14 and 15 year olds overseas who make at least $10(USD) a week doing basic HTML and CSS work).

4) You can barter for a hosting account (offer your skills and services to a company in exchange for a hosting account, some people on here have offered sales/tech support for a few hours a week in exchange for their own VPS).

I think Unity100's goal is not purely commercial. It is a mutually beneficial venture where needy (not that needy) people get helped out but at the same time prosperous for a business. There's a Nobel prize winner that created a bank based on a honor system with the goal of helping poor people by lending them money (micro credit). The idea is similar to an extent.

Check it out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15246216/

Whether this Web hosting idea is practical remains to be proved.

Regards
Joe

The problem is that whatever system is in place will be abused and thus the "needy" people will suffer by either having to pay realistic prices or settle for downtime/long load times.

I think Unity100's goal is not purely commercial. It is a mutually beneficial venture where needy (not that needy) people get helped out but at the same time prosperous for a business.
Regards
Joe

nailed it man !!! precisely that. i wonder why i wasnt able to put it in such plain words.

There's a Nobel prize winner that created a bank based on a honor system with the goal of helping poor people by lending them money (micro credit). The idea is similar to an extent.

Check it out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15246216/

Whether this Web hosting idea is practical remains to be proved.

Regards
Joe

well im not thinking about something that elaborate.

my main goal for this is to be public and accessible as much as it can be. ie, someone in south africa should be able to maintain a web site without any second thoughts, as well as someone from indonesia.

well im not thinking about something that elaborate.

my main goal for this is to be public and accessible as much as it can be. ie, someone in south africa should be able to maintain a web site without any second thoughts, as well as someone from indonesia.

Agreed, that one is a considerable undertaking. I personally know this guy that collects a large number of bicycles all year long. He goes around neighborhoods looking for broken bicycles or even fully working ones that were thrown away (wasted). He repairs what needs to be repaired and goes to Mexico to sell them, albeit for a comparatively cheap price. The intention is to probably to make a few bucks but he certainly does not know that he is contributing to improving the life of others. To a lot of people, a bicycle is a means of transportation and distribution of goods (milk, merchandise, etc).

In a sense he creates jobs but at the same time he's not doing it for free. He's unintentionally doing a huge service to those people.

Regards
Joe

something like that. tho i have the tendency to go increasingly generous as my wealth increases. so i noticed.