View Poll Results: Should we allow Unlimited offers on WHT?

Voters
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  • Yes

    178 29.57%
  • No

    341 56.64%
  • No Preference (I'm good either way)

    34 5.65%
  • Yes - But I'll post recommended restrictions in the thread

    49 8.14%
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Results 26 to 50 of 504
  1. #26
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    I will think about it for a bit before finally voting. On one hand, keeping unlimited away keeps the very large players away allowing the smaller users to compete. Allowing it will remove that.

    On the other hand, the market is moving to the "cloud" and unlimited really is becoming the norm. Some are going to benefit and some may lose business because of this change.

    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron View Post
    I voted no. I've always been against advertising "unlimited" everything. I would be for it if the ads were made to look like this:

    Unlimited Love (4 hugs or 1 kiss (on the mouth) max)
    I looked at your ad awhile ago, how many romantic love customers do you have currently

    Unlimited disk space (100GB max)
    Unlimited monthly transfer (5TB max)
    I think no quota or unmetered would be better terms to use with those limits.

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    I want unlimited datacentre (everything must be unlimited and without any limitation in small print) for $5 per year. Anyone can offer such datacentre? I can pay 10+ years in advance

    As some people believe in unlimited plans

    Voted: No
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  3. #28
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
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    5,178
    There are already hosts offering impossible amounts of disk space and bandwidth in the Offers forums. Not unlimited, but it might as well be when it's impossible to offer. So I'm not sure that allowing unlimited officially really changes much. Unlimited disk space is simply impossible and unlimited bandwidth is still limited by the maximum port speed every month and CPU cycles available as Orien and others have pointed out.

    So no, no unlimited, the more I think about it, the more I'm against it. If it ends up becoming a reality, at least require a business license from the host's country and have it available to members in the ad. And hosts with unlimited shouldn't have anonymous WHOIS. If you want to offer the impossible, at least tell folks who you are.

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    United Kingdom
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    16
    Shouldn't be allowed.

    Unlimited is simply not possible. I could have a dd command creating a file forever and at some point that provider couldn't support me either because i'm not paying enough or because they've no disks left!

    Billy

  5. #30
    As a hosting consumer for the past 10 years I have learned to stay away from anything that states "Unlimited". I much rather go into a contract fully knowing how much space, bandwidth, mysql, etc I have purchased so I do not have problems down the road. It's much easier to keep track of what disk space I have used and resources I have used on my site then to keep track when my site was shut down because of "abuse" on an unlimited account.

  6. #31
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    All over the world
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    Everything has its limits, there is nothing unlimited at all, so why hosting plans should be :-)

  7. #32
    Join Date
    May 2002
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    Quote Originally Posted by byezan View Post
    I voted no because I believe it is misleading as a prominent selling point. I can't see any good in making the advert reader believe resources are limitless and burying restrictions in the ToS/AuP.
    And for a host that offers their customers 1TB of storage and bandwidth for $10 dollars a month?

    Why isn't WHT restricting and monitoring the numbers for hosts that do have limits to make sure they are realistic based on their imaginary understanding of the shared hosting business?

    The simple fact is that for large hosts resources for disk space and bandwidth are limitless and don't matter as long as that space is for website usage.

    If you want to try and do something worthwhile make a rule that they have to disclose what % of the CPU and Memory you can use up too on each shared plan with a metric like CPU time?

    Or why not monitor a host for uptime and speed of web page delivery like ServerBear?

    Thanks, Ben
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  8. #33
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    May 2002
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    Internet / Colorado
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    Quote Originally Posted by target View Post
    Couldn't agree more ... it doenst' excist and it does creat expectations to the customer the hoster can't keep. Look at the Site5 story at this moment going on at WHT.
    Eh? That is about CPU usage, has nothing to do with disk space and bandwidth.

    Thanks, Ben
    Like passive recurring revenue you can retire on?
    You focus on building your brand, we handle all support, billing, and more.
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  9. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Albany, New York
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    3,026
    I vote NO.

  10. #35
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ohio
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    94
    If the whole issue is to prevent abuse and "fly by night" companies, why not require that the provider display valid public whois information and have at least a 1 year history?
    SupremeBytes, LLC
    █ Shared hosting, Reseller hosting, Dedicated Servers and Virtual Private Servers.

  11. #36
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    Mar 2012
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    Quote Originally Posted by bwb View Post
    And for a host that offers their customers 1TB of storage and bandwidth for $10 dollars a month?

    Why isn't WHT restricting and monitoring the numbers for hosts that do have limits to make sure they are realistic based on their imaginary understanding of the shared hosting business?
    It's not WHT's job to monitor. And if they offer it, they have to provide it. If not, it opens up a lot of doors.

  12. #37
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    May 2002
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    Internet / Colorado
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    Quote Originally Posted by SolidShellSecurity View Post
    It's not WHT's job to monitor. And if they offer it, they have to provide it. If not, it opens up a lot of doors.
    Ya I agree, so why are they trying to monitor by banning unlimited?

    Was the line drawn there for a good reason?

    Is the deal section attracting high quality hosts who have a scalable model and good support and uptime?

    Thanks, Ben
    Last edited by bwb; 02-10-2013 at 12:31 AM. Reason: spelling mistake
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  13. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by bwb View Post
    Ya I agree, so why are they trying to monitor by banning unlimited?

    Was the line drawn there for a good reason?

    Is the deal section attracting high quality hosts who have a scalable model and good support and uptime?

    Thanks, Ben
    I am curious too.

    If any line should be drawn, you should be a registered business to post. That would solve a lot of issues.

  14. #39
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    Jul 2010
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    montreal
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    I voted no ! Seen more then 80% custumer dont read T.O.S and some of them are fraud ! But in a marketing way you could get way more custumer ! But we all no theres a limit to anything !

  15. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by SolidShellSecurity View Post
    I am curious too.

    If any line should be drawn, you should be a registered business to post. That would solve a lot of issues.
    If this could be implemented then I would gladly change my vote to a Yes.

  16. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by SolidShellSecurity View Post
    I am curious too.

    If any line should be drawn, you should be a registered business to post. That would solve a lot of issues.
    +1, that is a great idea!
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  17. #42
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    Oct 2012
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    Georgia
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    I Vote Yes, If people feel misled by the "Unlimited" or have problems they will leave and give bad reviews which will only hurt the business advertising "Unlimited".
    https://zuziko.com Learn WordPress and Web Development

  18. #43
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    Feb 2005
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    Australia
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    Quote Originally Posted by bwb View Post
    Why isn't WHT restricting and monitoring the numbers for hosts that do have limits to make sure they are realistic
    Because we're stuck in the past, sadly.

    Once upon a time, disk space and transfer limits were the important factors, plans offering 250MB, 500MB, 1GB (or even less) were reasonable and users could do whatever they liked, within reason, with the space they were offered. Want to store backups? Or host an image gallery? Sure, no problem. Just upgrade your plan to include the amount of storage you need.

    But most users with regular websites simply don't understand how little space they need, and yet they're attracted to the "value" of hosts offering more. They want their little 50MB Wordpress blog to be hosted on a plan with a space limit of 50GB, or 100GB, or even xTB. So hosts oblige - they're in the business to make money after all, and whether the plan is named "50GB" or "xTB" or "unlimited" it's the same little website taking up 50MB of real disk space. As experts* we know that the user is ignorant and the host is taking advantage of them. The reality is that they won't get unlimited (infinite) space; they won't get xTB; they very likely won't even get 50GB before they hit some other limit. But that's ok because even allowing for future growth they'll never need more than 200MB for their blog anyway, right?

    Personally I think it's all rather dishonest but then I think, which of these is worse?
    • "unlimited", meaning "we don't put a fixed limit on this but rest assured that we'll limit you some other way", or
    • xTB, meaning "we're never ever going to give you this much but we're willing to flat-out lie to you and to WHT so we can advertise there"


    In reality, although we talk about two groups of hosts (unlimited and not), there's really a spectrum of offers here. I'd say the best description would be to divide them into three groups:
    1. Traditional - realistic space / transfer limits, no hidden restrictions
    2. Fake-limited - unrealistic space / transfer limits, hidden restrictions
    3. Unlimited - no fixed space / transfer limits, hidden restrictions


    Currently we allow 1 and 2 but not 3, and that doesn't make any sense to me, given that the most deceptive offers are at the top end of group 2.

    So my vote is yes, with restrictions. The restriction being that the unlimited hosts must publish in their ads all of those hidden restrictions they have in their ToS / AUP. That way, we attempt to educate hosting clients about the real limits that will be placed on them. I feel it's probably futile but it seems like the right thing to do.

    And then, seeing that many of the "fake-limited" ads we already allow also rely on hidden restrictions, we should apply the same disclosure requirement to all other hosts too. (I have a feeling that might be rather unpopular. Oh well.)




    * Expert: One who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
    Chris

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  19. #44
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    May 2002
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    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    Because we're stuck in the past, sadly.

    Once upon a time, disk space and transfer limits were the important factors, plans offering 250MB, 500MB, 1GB (or even less) were reasonable and users could do whatever they liked, within reason, with the space they were offered. Want to store backups? Or host an image gallery? Sure, no problem. Just upgrade your plan to include the amount of storage you need.

    But most users with regular websites simply don't understand how little space they need, and yet they're attracted to the "value" of hosts offering more. They want their little 50MB Wordpress blog to be hosted on a plan with a space limit of 50GB, or 100GB, or even xTB. So hosts oblige - they're in the business to make money after all, and whether the plan is named "50GB" or "xTB" or "unlimited" it's the same little website taking up 50MB of real disk space. As experts* we know that the user is ignorant and the host is taking advantage of them. The reality is that they won't get unlimited (infinite) space; they won't get xTB; they very likely won't even get 50GB before they hit some other limit. But that's ok because even allowing for future growth they'll never need more than 200MB for their blog anyway, right?

    Personally I think it's all rather dishonest but then I think, which of these is worse?
    • "unlimited", meaning "we don't put a fixed limit on this but rest assured that we'll limit you some other way", or
    • xTB, meaning "we're never ever going to give you this much but we're willing to flat-out lie to you and to WHT so we can advertise there"


    In reality, although we talk about two groups of hosts (unlimited and not), there's really a spectrum of offers here. I'd say the best description would be to divide them into three groups:
    1. Traditional - realistic space / transfer limits, no hidden restrictions
    2. Fake-limited - unrealistic space / transfer limits, hidden restrictions
    3. Unlimited - no fixed space / transfer limits, hidden restrictions


    Currently we allow 1 and 2 but not 3, and that doesn't make any sense to me, given that the most deceptive offers are at the top end of group 2.

    So my vote is yes, with restrictions. The restriction being that the unlimited hosts must publish in their ads all of those hidden restrictions they have in their ToS / AUP. That way, we attempt to educate hosting clients about the real limits that will be placed on them. I feel it's probably futile but it seems like the right thing to do.

    And then, seeing that many of the "fake-limited" ads we already allow also rely on hidden restrictions, we should apply the same disclosure requirement to all other hosts too. (I have a feeling that might be rather unpopular. Oh well.)




    * Expert: One who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
    Nice post!

    I think the main theme you missed though was the growth of PHP/MySQL, 98% of all sites now use it and that is why the only metric that matters now is CPU & Memory & IO and related hardware restrictions.

    If WHT wanted to try and do something to help the industry it should try and build a metric for CPU, or use CPU Time or similar from linux. As disk space and bandwidth don't matter really, it's all CPU/Mem/IO/Configuration.

    Thanks, Ben
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  20. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Calum_JazzyLabs View Post
    As soon as an unlimited hard drive becomes available on Amazon, I will happily vote yes. Until then, advertise your plan restrictions on the plan page and not in the Terms.
    ok, but, even if you do that, WHT still doesnt allow it

    see here

    https://accounts.cartika.com/cart/cp...eller-account/

    we advertise regularly on WHT - banners and such - and would get banned for advertising the above plans - whereas companies are selling TBs of disk and bandwidth and are permitted to spam the advertising forums - explain that to me?

    Quote Originally Posted by bwb View Post
    Nice post!

    I think the main theme you missed though was the growth of PHP/MySQL, 98% of all sites now use it and that is why the only metric that matters now is CPU & Memory & IO and related hardware restrictions.

    If WHT wanted to try and do something to help the industry it should try and build a metric for CPU, or use CPU Time or similar from linux. As disk space and bandwidth don't matter really, it's all CPU/Mem/IO/Configuration.

    Thanks, Ben
    correct - ALL hosting is now about hard resources - nothing more... it is confusing to me that we can indicate exactly how many resources an account gets, but, because we say "unlimited bandwidth" within those resources, its not permitted.. as those resource limits present the actual limits

    its like saying unlimited minutes should be banned (when minutes in a day acts as a natural boundry for "unlimited")
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  21. #46
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    I say yes, as long as other limits are mentioned.

    I guess CPU % and file limits (inodes) should do with port speed for bandwith?
    Nothing here right now.

  22. #47
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    Jan 2005
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    Firstly, It is out and out fraud to sell something that does not exist at all, show me an unlimited hard drive and I will re-consider.

    Secondly, Many people do not read the ToS to see if there are any restrictions on what "unlimited" space can be used for, evidenced by the threads that always pop up about "XYZ Unlimited terminated my account"

    Thirdly, WHT is an industry resource and should be trying to improve the web hosting industry, and that does not always mean following with what is currently happening in the industry. I see no problem with how WHT currently handles unlimited hosting.

    I also agree that hosts offering TB's of space etc are just as bad as those offering unlimited space.

    Before I got into the industry I made the mistake of using an unlimited host and got burned, since then I have always made sure to use hosts with limits.
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  23. #48
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    Aug 2008
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    This debate seems to be morphing into a discussion about CPU, memory and I/O resources. Those resources are the limiting factors but the question is "Should we allow Unlimited offers on WHT?" (unlimited diskspace and bandwidth) - That is the billboard headline, the poster, the stuff above the fold to grab your attention as a selling point. That is what I voted no on.

    There is an issue with fake limited hosts but the unlimited host is always offering more. Both are false advertising / mis-selling IMO.

  24. #49
    Yes, I think it should be allow.

  25. #50
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    Indonesia
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    i vote no, because what i know most of provider which advertise unlimited plan is oversold their plan

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