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  1. #1
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    It's time to stop stifling innovation.

    WHT is unquestionably a leader in the hosting industry. Where else can you find CEOs of the largest companies spending the majority of their day reading and responding to forum posts? 5 years ago WHT put in place restrictions on what kind of offers hosts could make on WHT. At the time it was a great idea. It prevented customers from being taken advantage of.

    It's 2012 now - shared hosting is no longer restricted by the amount of disk space or bandwidth used. The limitations are now based on I/O, CPU and RAM. With the changes in the hosting industry, and the implementation of new technologies, such as cloud storage, all WHT is doing now is preventing industry leaders from innovating in this industry.

    It’s time to remove the restrictions and let brilliant, young minds develop new and innovative business models that undoubtedly bring changes to this industry. Changes that will be better for the longevity industry and the quality of hosting for the consumer.

    Many will object and claim that hosting offers still require regulation and oversight from WHT. I call them dinosaurs in this industry refusing to keep up with market demands.

  2. #2
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    What changes specifically do you want to see implemented?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Martin-D View Post
    What changes specifically do you want to see implemented?
    At the very least:

    1. Removal of disk space restriction
    2. Removal of bandwidth restrictions
    3. Allow lifetime hosting offers


    This industry has the potential to move very quickly with the advent of new technologies. Unfortunately with so many companies actively participating in discussion here, WHT has indirectly prevented hosting companies from changing what they can offer to customers. This prevents all of us from bringing innovation to old product lines, like shared hosting, and introducing new industry changing products to the market as well.

    Remove the chains and let the ideas flow!

  4. #4
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    Yeah its silly not allowing unlimited offers nowadays, its was a good score to police things by ten years ago, but not the case now.

    The cpanel hosts are dead in the water anyway, innovation is already happening with webfaction, heroku, dotcloud, joyent cloud, etc..

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by IGobyTerry View Post
    At the very least:

    1. Removal of disk space restriction
    2. Removal of bandwidth restrictions
    3. Allow lifetime hosting offers

    You want to make WHT like eBay?

  6. #6
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    When I can go to the store and buy an "unlimited" hard drive and tell my bandwidth provider to put me on the "unlimited" port on their switch I will agree with you.

    People offering "unlimited" resources and then limiting them in the fine print are liars and scammers.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by IGobyTerry View Post
    At the very least:

    1. Removal of disk space restriction
    2. Removal of bandwidth restrictions
    3. Allow lifetime hosting offers


    This industry has the potential to move very quickly with the advent of new technologies. Unfortunately with so many companies actively participating in discussion here, WHT has indirectly prevented hosting companies from changing what they can offer to customers. This prevents all of us from bringing innovation to old product lines, like shared hosting, and introducing new industry changing products to the market as well.

    Remove the chains and let the ideas flow!
    I could agree to everything except the "Allow lifetime hosting offers". Unlimited Disk Space and Bandwidth should be allowed in select cases where the host clearly defines any backend limits being monitored (inode counts for example).

  8. #8
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    If there are back-end limits, then, by definition, it isn't unlimited.

    Unlimited is a scam, mismarketing and misinformation. It gives hosting a bad name imho.

    If you have an offer, be clear about it.

    Instead of unlimited, call it 'effective unlimited, with these limits', but above all, be honest.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron View Post
    When I can go to the store and buy an "unlimited" hard drive and tell my bandwidth provider to put me on the "unlimited" port on their switch I will agree with you.

    People offering "unlimited" resources and then limiting them in the fine print are liars and scammers.
    ^^ This ^^
    I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I am pretty sure I've said the same thing over the past 10 years multiple times.
    There is no such thing as 'unlimited'. Unmetered bandwidth? Yes, and WHT allows for that (IIRC). Unlimited hard drive space? Nope... That is a scam

    Sure, you can link drives together in sn array, but, there is always a finite limit to how much space you have.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by dediserve View Post
    If there are back-end limits, then, by definition, it isn't unlimited.
    Hosting plans are a list of features limited by artificial and sometimes arbitrary quotas. Its the absence of these quota that makes it unlimited. Has nothing to do with the back end. Unlimited by definition means no limit, in other words, no quota.

    Instead of unlimited, call it 'effective unlimited, with these limits', but above all, be honest.
    Why not demand the same honesty of "limited" hosts? Their quota-based sites have back-end limits that can prevent usage of the full quota.

    A 1Gb web site will, all other things being equal, will experience no difference if it is on a 5GB plan or an unlimited plan. There is nothing inherent in the unlimited plan that would change that. Server can't read hosting plans. They don't respond to the bullet points on a hosts homepage plan box.

    Unlimited is a scam, mismarketing and misinformation
    Its the misrepresentation of unlimited hosting that is the scam, mostly perpetrated by other hosts who are unable or incapable ofering it and resort to FUD marketing. The ubiquitous nonsense about infinite hard drives is classic
    Last edited by Collabora; 08-22-2012 at 12:40 PM.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    Hosting plans are a list of features limited by artificial and sometimes arbitrary quotas. Its the absence of these quota that makes it unlimited. Has nothing to do with the back end. Unlimited by definition means no limit, in other words, no quota.
    I support everything Terry said except the lifetime hosting offers. I think that they are typically used to excite customers and then drop them. Unlimited is a must as it's very sustainable if well managed.

  12. #12
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    I have always advocated allowing hosts to advertise unlimited anytime, so long as they disclose every limiting factor used to determine whether a client's account will remain active, in the same ad.

    The other side of this is hosts who have artificially high limits to bypass rules.

    The answer is that all hosts must publish their limits within their advertisements. You do this, and as far as I'm concerned, you can offer 200% upgrades on your "unlimited" drives

    If a customer comes to WHT and complains that he or she was kicked off a host for overusing resources, and we see that the host did not disclose those factors in their advertisements on WHT, they lose ad privileges. Simple as that.

    This is good, because even hosts who do not oversell space/transfer must limit resource usage to prevent getting overrun by bad scripts. This should be openly discussed and required in all ads. This way, everyone gets to create the hosting plans/environments they want with no restrictions, everyone is forced to be open and honest, and more dialog can take place related to hosting resources that will be educational for visitors.

    I see no downside to this, except that hosts will need to spend a little more time creating their advertisements.

  13. #13
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    Perhaps the term used should be 'unmetered' with certain limitations.

  14. #14
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    With regards to unlimited bandwidth, it just shouldnt be mentioned, it should be governed by fair-use if no explicit limited, kinda like Heroku etc.., being explicit about unlimited can open a whole can of words, that said that isnt the point of this thread.

    Ultimately, I dont think WHT should police these offers just as much as they shouldnt police hosts with "unlimited websites", or "unlimited emails" etc reseller accounts or the other crap we have now with master/alpha etc... Just like 99.999% dont enforce a limit on IOPS, on clock cycles per request, or incoming emails per hour, perhaps because their on the platform that cant handle isolation and resource accounting but still the fact remains. What about "unlimited subdomains" I can pretty sure I can starve that out? (any cpanel host want to take challenge then PM me). I see far greater points of contention with sine hosts than other hosts that dont explicitly limit bandwidth or space that parade around WHT flashing their gear (i mean sigs)
    Last edited by MattF; 08-22-2012 at 01:22 PM.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm View Post
    This is good, because even hosts who do not oversell space/transfer must limit resource usage to prevent getting overrun by bad scripts. This should be openly discussed and required in all ads. This way, everyone gets to create the hosting plans/environments they want with no restrictions, everyone is forced to be open and honest, and more dialog can take place related to hosting resources that will be educational for visitors.

    I see no downside to this, except that hosts will need to spend a little more time creating their advertisements.
    All honest hosts will put these non-planbox limitations in their TOS/AUP. Perhaps by requiring a link to the TOS/AUP will make it easier for the honest host and provide the results you are looking for?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by dediserve View Post
    Perhaps the term used should be 'unmetered' with certain limitations.
    I agree with this.

  17. #17
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    Then you'll just get the usual idiots shouting "who read's the TOS/AuP these days?!"

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    All honest hosts will put these non-planbox limitations in their TOS/AUP. Perhaps by requiring a link to the TOS/AUP will make it easier for the honest host and provide the results you are looking for?
    All hosts, even dishonest ones, will put this information in their TOS. This is how you keep out of legal trouble.

    This is not good enough. Forcing people to dig through pages of legal documentation in order to obtain basic information about how the service they purchase operates is not acceptable.

    At the very least, if we're going to stop policing offers (which I support), hosts should have to include a line in their ads saying what items factor into limiting accounts, and provide a link to the specific section of information that states it.

    This, in my mind, would be a minimal requirement:

    Quote Originally Posted by future ads

    Limitations

    Company XYZ limits usage based on the following factors:
    - iNodes used
    - Monthly CPU time
    - CPU utilization during spikes

    View complete information on limitations here
    View restrictions on how your account may be used here
    I'd prefer it if they were listed with plans, as a plan feature:

    Basic Plan:
    - blah
    - blah
    - blah
    - iNodes - 30,000
    - CPU time - 10 min/mo.
    - etc.

    You get the idea. This is responsible advertising. It opens up new areas for discussion that should be addressed, bringing important factors into view that should be in plain site for the sake of general education. It allows people to compare apples to apples and really get a sense for which hosts will meet their needs. And most important, it provides the right environment to allow "unlimited" or "unmetered" (more accurate) selling on WHT.

    I predict 50% of the limited hosts on WHT will switch to Unlimited/Unmetered if we allow this, and I don't mind that one bit, so long as it's done responsibly.

  19. #19
    Honesty is the best innovation of all

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by MostHost View Post
    Honesty is the best innovation of all

    <agree>

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm View Post
    I predict 50% of the limited hosts on WHT will switch to Unlimited/Unmetered if we allow this, and I don't mind that one bit, so long as it's done responsibly.
    There's probably quite a few hosts that switched from unlimited to advertise here, so I'm sure you are right. I agree about limitations being more straight forward, but if you are offering unlimited you really can't apeal to the market that wants to be informed and browses WHT at this point because of all of the Unlmited hate here.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by morrisonhosting View Post
    There's probably quite a few hosts that switched from unlimited to advertise here, so I'm sure you are right. I agree about limitations being more straight forward, but if you are offering unlimited you really can't apeal to the market that wants to be informed and browses WHT at this point because of all of the Unlmited hate here.
    At least at that point it's a community discussion and the "policing" it being done through education and debate between members, not moderators.

    There are plenty of people who hate "unlimited" and there are plenty of people who support "unlimited," but who understand there's a big difference between unlimited disk/transfer and other resources. I agree with Terry - the current WHT position stifles this debate by taking a side on the issue before someone has even made their first post. Obviously the debate is still there, but it's almost moot on WHT.

    We are interfering with thought leadership by not looking for ways to rethink how hosting works in a responsible manner.

  23. #23
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    "Unlimited" is just that. If you offer me unlimited bandwidth then I'd better be able to push an infinite amount of bits per second down that pipe. a 1Gbit, 10Gbit or 100Gbit connection is not unlimited.

    If you offer unlimited hard drive space and then cut me off when I use 5TB, then why not just say "this plan comes with 5TB of space"? Why mislead the customer or tell them you provide something you clearly don't.

    I have never heard a good agrument for "unlimited" service simply because at the end of the day it doesn't exist.

    The ONLY reason I have EVER been given that even makes sense to me is that you're trying to lure in unsophisticated customers that don't know any better.

  24. #24
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    I'll just follow up quick:

    If you want to say something like "Unlimited transfer on your 1Gbit connection", while the term unmetered is technically more accurate I can see something like that. Kind of like the cell phone "unlimited" talk time when there's only 720 hours in a month.

    but there has to be a clearly stated limit, like "Unlimited disk space on your 40GB allotment" which sounds stupid but that's as far as I could ever see going.

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron View Post
    "Unlimited" is just that. If you offer me unlimited bandwidth then I'd better be able to push an infinite amount of bits per second down that pipe. a 1Gbit, 10Gbit or 100Gbit connection is not unlimited.

    If you offer unlimited hard drive space and then cut me off when I use 5TB, then why not just say "this plan comes with 5TB of space"? Why mislead the customer or tell them you provide something you clearly don't.

    I have never heard a good agrument for "unlimited" service simply because at the end of the day it doesn't exist.

    The ONLY reason I have EVER been given that even makes sense to me is that you're trying to lure in unsophisticated customers that don't know any better.
    I've seen many good arguements made for unlimited hosting, how good an argument is is opinion. If it says you get an unlimited 100Mb/s shared connection what does that mean? That means they are not imposing any limits on that connection. It's a free for all on that line. I still hate when people use bandwidth for transfer. It's not bandwidth they are capping (though some hosts do) it's the transfer.

    If a hard drive is unlimited, it means it's a free for all on that drive. The balance is the fine art of the administrator.

    Or, put a fair use clause on the drive.

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