A lot of the posts on WHT are about the bad experiences many of us have had with a hosting company. It appears that the hosting industry is dominated by crappy hosting companies (don’t take offense if you run a good hosting business I know there are a few good ones out there).
As a hosting consumer, I was just wondering how many paid hosting companies you have used from the beginning? I have had several web sites since 1999 and I’ve used 4 hosting companies in that time. One went out of business. Two were terrible and one I left because there packages were too expensive. If you vote please let me know the main reason why you left that host. No purpose for this poll, I’m just curious.

First one am still with for one of my sites.

Next was CyberWings which we all know what happened to.

Then AWH, which sucks ass.

And now dedicated servers provided by me. So I guess only 3 not 4, oops.

I've been through 7 since September 27, 2000 when I got my domain. :) However only 4 I have paid with (I'll pay for hosting *if* I can find a job :( ).

Here is a list of of the hosts I used or are currently still using:

Valueweb <-- Needed cheaper package
NoMonthlyFeels <-- Cheaper till I did the math
Hostway <-- Most of everything needed to be done trough telnet/ssh (I suck in telent/ssh)
WTFHosting <-- *shakes head*
Domainsville <-- Server problems and long open tickets (One ticket was 28 days when I left, and email bounced)
Cadenet <-- Unable to get to host's site and my site, and email bounced (couldn't get there from a friends place either).
Akashik <-- I'm hosted here now

I listed the reason why I left, and there is more info (good and bad) about the hosts I left.

The previous info is intened for informational purposes only and should not be used to choose a new host. ;)

ICOM for a few months, OLM for over 2 years, Netacore for about a week, MCHost since around May I think.

ICOM was good as far as uptime went, but their prices were a bit high for what you got. OLM was great and had reasonable prices, but my in-use domains racked up to about 15 and I didn't want to have 15 separate hosting accounts for each domain, so I just got a reseller account instead.

6 or 7 i believe, 4 at present

Tripod and Geocities free but great way back then.

Paid addr.com (excellent) but moved to worldzonepro because it was cheaper (also excellent)

I don't remember my first host, but I know I left there because of some poor data transfer calculation on their part...

Then came APHosting which later became Xism. What a freakin' nightmare that was... They don't pay their own bills so they lost their server. Most people, myself included, jumped ship, and the rest were absorbed by MeHost.

Now I'm with FluidHosting. I've been there since February and life is good. ;)

2, after that i got my first server :)

3 different companies, haven't had any trully bad experiances, had some ones I wish were handled differently but this doesn't mean they were handled wrong.

We used three before we decided to become host ourselves and now going into our 5th year. We were sick and tired of going down weekly from one host and the other was robbed at the datacenter and all hardware was stolen and our first had no support for a demanding newbie ...:o)

I've had three - two I'm still with and one who I had to immediately cancel due to firewall problems (that was Verve hosting - they were really good about it).

The two I'm with now are about to become ex-hosts (Aletia and SuccessfullHosting)

Looking for one to consolidate the above two and also one for personal use...

That will bring it to five.

I've used ten different hosts in total since 1999. I had different sites hosted on different companies, not just one site jumping through ten hosts.

I had five before I graduated to a server.

Two hosts I have been with awhile are:

CommuniTech.Net - I've been getting about 99.97% uptime, but their prices are expensive
MCHost.com - much cheaper, but only 99.01% uptime and terrible support

I've also had 30 day accounts (which I cancelled) with:

pair.com - they have major security issues
remarkablehosting.com - none of my customers could stand the Ensim CP

Planning on moving to a dedicated box very soon...

I've used 3 including myself.
I started off with Apixhosting.Com. They were resellers of F5hosting, wasn't too bad. Support was excellent at first, then it seemed they started to lose interest and you'd only find them online once a week. Apixhosting then shut down and I got transferred to F5hosting. That wasn't bad either. After a month at F5 I went out on my own.

Ive only been hosted by myself..

Now if we were talking dedicated server provides that would be around 6

nocster
serverbeach
rackspace
ezzi
ochosting
burstNET

Which of those have been the best?

I voted 4 and I did not count free hostings.

I have been with two, 1st/Cyberwings , that didn't last but 6 months and that ended, then moved on to TotallyHosted.net and am still there but must move again as their service is atrocious. My sites are down almost every week end, C-panel and e-mail was just down for two weeks and they have more tham doubled the price. I am now looking for a new host for my two domains. I seem to always make bad choices.