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08-22-2012, 02:34 PM #26Web Host Reviewer
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Then "unlimited" hosts need to quit hide back-door limits in fine print documents.
I see too many "unlimited" hosts restricting content that would be perfectly fine at what you refer to as a "limited" host. Now who's limited? If I cannot put a 1GB ISO file into my account (not linked to any public web page) at an "unlimited" host, but I can do so at my so-called "limited" (resources specified) host, then what do you say to that?
Let's also not confuse services with resources...
Email, databases, FTP accounts, domains, etc -- no reason to limit those. Those are services.
Hard disk, RAM, CPU, bandwidth -- those are resources.
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08-22-2012, 02:40 PM #27Web Hosting Master
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Last edited by Collabora; 08-22-2012 at 02:47 PM.
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08-22-2012, 02:52 PM #28
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08-22-2012, 02:53 PM #29Web Hosting Master
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I would say you cannot put a 1GB ISO file into your account (not linked to any public web page) at your "unlimited" host, but you can do so at your so-called "limited" (resources specified) host
What does that have to do with the price of tea in china? I thought we were talking about web hosting, not online file archiving and storage. If you can find a web host to store your iso files, and those of your family and neighbors that great. But web hosts are legitimately able to refuse that kind of service. All unlimited hosts (should) have that restriction in TOS/AUP; I have even seen it in limited hosts.Last edited by Collabora; 08-22-2012 at 03:02 PM.
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08-22-2012, 02:56 PM #30
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08-22-2012, 03:12 PM #31Web Hosting Master
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Sounds like your advocating this because you want to sell an unlimited / lifetime plan.
Nothing is unlimited and as Aaron said.. Until your truly going to give unlimited space, bandwidth, etc out then you should not be selling it as unlimited.
What kind of marketing scheme are you going to try and run here? Unlimited something? Lifetime something?
Going to guess that it's possible for someone to outlive the life of vps.net, then what? It's not unlimited. So you should stick to a time scale and a resource scale that is truly measurable.
Doesn't sound like innovation, sounds more like trying to milk people for money
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08-22-2012, 03:15 PM #32
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08-22-2012, 03:20 PM #33Web Host Reviewer
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What about the hosts who have long often-vague limits?
- No files over 512kb
- No images, except when linked to page
- Nothing offensive. (term not defined)
Talk about stifling innovation. The modern web is media rich, and some of these "unlimited hosting" goons act like it's still a decade ago, in terms of how people need/want to use hosting accounts in 2012.
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08-22-2012, 03:22 PM #34Web Hosting Master
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Can't the reverse be true? Should we ban opinions of those who have a stake in the result. We can always say the same thing about the anti-unlimited..."well you don't offer it that is why you are against it....blah blah blah.
Nothing is unlimited ......
We come across unlimited features every day. And all of them are ultimately connected to something limited. It can be unlimited talk time limited by the number of minutes in a day, unlimited mileage limited by the length of roads and gallons of fuel, and even unlimited disk space limited by server hardware. They all have one other thing in common: what is offered as unlimited is simply the absence of the provider imposing a limit, not nature.
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08-22-2012, 03:25 PM #35
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08-22-2012, 03:38 PM #36Web Hosting Master
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I actually have no intention of running unlimited plans or lifetime hosting schemes. In fact, offering unlimited disk space would be worse for me, as my inherent costs for disk space are significantly higher than most competitors.
What I want to do is work with the thought leaders of this industry to push us forward. We've become complacent with the existing service levels. If we want to grow and become a more powerful industry, we may need to change.
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08-22-2012, 05:53 PM #37Retired Moderator
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Do you really think "innovation" is being stifled with the lack of unlimited hard disk space?
I don't. If all your innovation is around unlimited you are going to have some problems. The problem too is that once you let the people who know how to realistically do it advertise it, you get the race to the bottom with every host offering unlimited even though they don't have a clue how to do it.
I like the rules as is only because I can't think of a way to write it so that the companies that can handle it are allowed to but the others can't.
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08-22-2012, 06:06 PM #38Web Hosting Master
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08-22-2012, 07:39 PM #39Eternal Member
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The thing is, if you limit I/O, CPU, and RAM like you said, somebody can still buy an account and stick many TBs of files on it. They can be larger files, so they won't even reach an inode limit. CPU and RAM usage could be super low if they're just serving up static files. How are you going to combat that? They'll probably get suspended, and that's why I think it's misleading. Obviously this isn't a typical scenario, but it can happen and that's why SOME sort of limit should be advertised. If you're going to say unlimited bandwidth, at least replace that with "unmetered/shared unmetered bandwidth" which many VPS/dedicated providers already do, along with stating the port speed. I think that's totally reasonable to offer. For disk space, however, since it really has nothing to do with usage over time like bandwidth (or more specifically data transfer), I can't see how 'unlimited' space isn't false advertising.
Lots of people like to say that offering something like unlimited mysql databases is the same thing as unlimited space, but it's really not. If you say that the account has no limit on MySQL databases, but they are accounted for in the account's disk allocation, that is not false advertising. Even if someone created many empty databases, the resulting base directory structure of the database on the server would still consume some space, so they'd reach their disk allocation eventually. But when you advertise unlimited space, it's possible to have an obscene amount of space used before you reach any CPU, RAM limits, etc. So where's the upper limit for somebody's disk usage, unless you put in other restrictions on the types of files users can upload, etc. (which would really be misleading!)
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08-22-2012, 08:06 PM #40Web Hosting Master
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It standard practice to limit file types to those that support a legitimate web site. You will see this mentioned in the TOS/AUP fair-usage clauses along with the usual cpu, ram limits that all hosts put there. Using the disk space for PC backups, storing mp3s, iso files, etc is considered abuse on the same level as runing a script that uses too much cpu time.
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08-22-2012, 09:45 PM #41Geek Of All Trades
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What kind of comments are these?!
Do you pay WHT for advertising? - No
Does WHT owe you anything? - No
No one is "preventing" you from moving your business into whatever market you want to try to excel in except you.
This should not be your only or main avenue of advertising.
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08-22-2012, 10:46 PM #42Eternal Member
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I don't buy that this is a legitimate restriction though. Most providers who don't give obscene amounts of space in their plans do not have this kind of restriction. It's just a way providers have regulated ridiculous amounts of overselling.
If I actually can afford to have a client use 10GB of space, then as a provider I wouldn't care what kind of files they store as long as they are legal. After all, fundamentally all I am doing is assigning them space on the server. Files they place in the document root ('public_html' as it's often named) are viewable from the web, but they're free to store other files too.
Anyway, even with these restrictions, my point holds. What if I'm not backing up my PC. What if my website consists of PDFs of scanned documents (these can be large), and need to dump them all somewhere? We then once again reach the conclusion, if a provider is offering "unlimited disk space" it's possible to use obscene amounts without breaching ANY of the ToS, unless the provider starts putting in ridiculous file type restrictions - banning my PDF repository too.
What happened to being able to buy a hosting account to host whatever I wanted unless it was illegal or I actually ran out of resources (which for a PDF repository, would NEVER happen here with unlimited space)?Last edited by layer0; 08-22-2012 at 10:50 PM.
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08-22-2012, 11:15 PM #43Web Hosting Master
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Of course they don't -- they don't need them. But the principle is the same: maintaining the integrity of the server via a fair usage policy. There is no law that requires hosts to use quotas to keep disk usage under control. Purposing is a perfectly legitimate alternative. If you don't like that method use quotas, no one is forcing you one way or the other.
What if my website consists of PDFs of scanned documents (these can be large), and need to dump them all somewhere? We then once again reach the conclusion, if a provider is offering "unlimited disk space" it's possible to use obscene amounts without breaching ANY of the ToS, unless the provider starts putting in ridiculous file type restrictions - banning my PDF repository too.
Your question cannot be answered unless you can point to a plan and its TOS. I can't speak for every host regarding using disk space purposed for a web site to store massive amounts of PDFs.
What happened to being able to buy a hosting account to host whatever I wanted unless it was illegal or I actually ran out of resources (which for a PDF repository, would NEVER happen here with unlimited space)?
I challenge you to point to one documented case where a legitimate web site suitable for a shared hosting environment was suspended because of an unlimited plan
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08-22-2012, 11:25 PM #44Eternal Member
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Actually, not sure how much you frequent the main web hosting forums, but this has definitely happened. As to whether you think their website is 'legitimate' is personal opinion. I think hosting many PDF documents is legitimate if that's what my site needs. And if you think that's just some invented use case - it's not. I consult for a firm who needed hosting for exactly this. We ended up using a nice dedicated cluster setup, but logically they could have just picked up a $5/mo unlimited account and not break the TOS.
All I'm saying is when you offer unlimited disk space, there's potential for you not to reach ANY of the other limits (CPU, RAM, etc.) while still using way too much space (or attempting to) for the company to feasibly offer you. I don't care if this would be impossible on a limited plan anyway (this is obvious, there IS a limit then after all), but when you advertise unlimited, you give the customer the wrong idea.
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08-22-2012, 11:35 PM #45Web Hosting Master
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I frequent them quite a bit
I haven't seen one case where the same activity would never have gotten them suspended on a limited account.
As to whether you think their website is 'legitimate' is personal opinion.
I think hosting many PDF documents is legitimate if that's what my site needs. And if you think that's just some invented use case - it's not. I consult for a firm who needed hosting for exactly this. We ended up using a nice dedicated cluster setup, but logically they could have just picked up a $5/mo unlimited account and not break the TOS.
All I'm saying is when you offer unlimited disk space, there's potential for you not to reach ANY of the other limits (CPU, RAM, etc.)
I don't care if this would be impossible on a limited plan anyway (this is obvious, there IS a limit then after all), but when you advertise unlimited, you give the customer the wrong idea.
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08-22-2012, 11:38 PM #46Eternal Member
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And my point is, that's NOT necessary when you give a real limit on disk space in the first place.
Based on a few ToS' I read, file purposing wouldn't have stopped my PDF repository from being hosted. So then what?
Instead of the smoke and mirrors of unlimited space unless you try to host something other than X, how about just giving a real limit? You don't think that's way easier for the customer to understand?
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08-23-2012, 12:05 AM #47Web Hosting Master
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This AUP is from an anti-unlimited limited host in this thread:
[host] uses abuse controls to help ensure that use of our services does not adversely affect the performance of our system or other customers' sites. It is not appropriate to use an account primarily as an online storage space or for archiving electronic files.
I've come across other limited hosts that use the same language. Certainly if limited hosts can use a policy like this then unlimited hosts can also.Last edited by Collabora; 08-23-2012 at 12:08 AM.
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08-23-2012, 12:12 AM #48Eternal Member
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A lot of companies who oversell quite a bit also do that, so I'm not surprised you found a non-unlimited example. I don't consider offering 1TB space for $5 to be much different from unlimited, although it's at least slightly better.
But frankly, how is an HTML document not an electronic file? This wording is stupid, and I'm surprised you don't see that.
And online storage space, isn't that to some degree what web hosting is in the first place? Sure it's more specialized than that in some ways, but you ARE providing online space at the end of the day as a web host.
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08-23-2012, 12:20 AM #49Web Hosting Master
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I don't think you are going to understand until you can accept that a web host is not compelled to be a Mozy
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08-23-2012, 12:23 AM #50Location = SoapBox
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this is a really complex argument. Ive been beating my head around this argument for a long long time. On one hand, disk and bandwidth arent natively limited - like minutes in a day.. so, its hard to make the argument that hosting providers can operate like cell phone providers. On the other hand, hosting is a pretty unique industry and one that is still yet to be properly defined and understood.. so, why should it operate like any other industry in the first place.
I honestly dont know. I know in shared hosting, we offer limited plans, and we also specify hard resources limits on each plan (cpu, ram and disk IO). Im not sure if this helps us or hurts us from a shared web hosting perspective. Ive been half tempted to leave the limits on disk exactly as they are - and just change bandwidth to unlimited, along with the hard resource limits we have in place. I mean if you can push 1000GB without using more then 40% of a single CPU - all the power to you. If you can only push 10GB with that much CPU and RAM, so be it..
not sure my post is going anywhere - or if I actually have a point to make. After all of these years, I dont think I have a viable answer or firm opinion on this one.
I will say this though, I dont think WHT should be determining what a proper business model is. I say have at it.. at the very least, it will act as a method to further and more clearly differentiate business models. I mean is it really different seeing someone selling 400GB disk, 1TB transfer, alpha reseller with unlimited sub resellers, unlimited accounts for $2.95?
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