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  1. #26
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    I understand Terrance's point. I don't think it is the end of WHT but right now there are certainly some crazy pricing points being floated around. Even reputable providers are hitting those pricing points to offload older inventory.

    Personally I just don't know what you can do about it as the market is being flooded with miner devices who need best bang for the buck without much care about redundancy etc.
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  2. #27
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    Technology has evolved.
    Prices have dropped dramatically for hardware.
    And is not even that alone, you guys are skipping or forgetting that knowledge in previous times was just limited to people with university degree. Now everybody who knows how to use Google and Youtube can go on their way alone. Meaning that hosting knowledge in general have expanded dramatically. What happens when knowledge of some kind expand so much? The related services prices start to fall. Why? Well anybody can do it, just like PC Repair Services, same thing happened.

    Anybody can get their own hardware and Colo it, is so cheap to colo now days...
    Anybody can setup a VPS/SERVER with google and youtube.

    --
    Another reason is that this forum and others have turned into a spamming pool. We see the same thing everyday. Nobody cares to use the search. What is the best? What is the cheapest? Then the same people go there and spam spam sig.

    Serious people in the industry have forgotten about this forums, nobody have time to crawl into the million of offers both legitimate and damn illegitimate in the offers section. Therefor the big fish (the serious one) is never around. Who benefit of that? The biggest companys the ones with a PR so high... For example: Singlehop. They are very very very expensive compare to what other offers nowdays. But they are up and running good. People now rely more on google searches than on forums.

    Big companys can pay lots for advertising at google and facebook.

    --
    Another reason based on the previous. The forum audience is more young now. Therefor the crave for slow cheap prices. Which relates to summer host or kiddi hosts.

    Also I bet that the majority of the audience nowdays is out of the US and UK, probably India? The budget is not the same...

    --


    So if you are a company that lease servers and your competitor are giving away theirs at damn low cheap prices, and it is affecting your sales, what would you do? I only see 2 options:

    1)Demonstrate your value, why yours is better? Which the majority of times dont work.
    2)Just lower your prices and try to kill your competitor.

    #2 seems the obvious one.

    Something like what Digital Ocean did? ^ ^ "Launch at damn slow prices, let's kill them all?"
    --

  3. #28
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    I wouldn't think staff here could set limits as to minimum prices for plans or maximin prices for plans it's insane and like telling most hosts how to run their business. Doing something like this will make members run away. WHT has been here long time so has some providers and after time prices change they go up they go down it's all a matter of if you can close the sale or not with that customer.

  4. #29
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    I've been around the industry for 10+ years. It's cyclical -- the market always corrects itself. The loss leaders get bought out, financing terms change, business models change, or sometimes, people grow up and need to make a better living.

    Currently customers are placing a premium on IaaS & PaaS providers, leaving shared providers to compete on price. Guys like WPEngine, Pagoda Box... etc are able to maintain healthy margins, as they've differentiated their offering. Eventually the market will shift, either through adaptation, or customer demand changes, and the market will again place high demand on shared providers.

    That's not to say shared is dead right now. Certain shared providers out there have done however done a tremendous job at projecting their value, focusing on niches; Site5 has really differentiated themselves with the number of locations they have, while guys like Rochen have been able to demonstrate expertise with certain applications.

    Again, I don't think WHT has much to worry about: as long as they provide an open medium to discuss web hosting, the forum will always maintain a continued high level of activity.
    Last edited by IGobyTerry; 01-21-2014 at 12:06 AM.

  5. #30
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    Something like what Digital Ocean did? ^ ^ "Launch at damn slow prices, let's kill them all?"
    DigitalOcean didn't just push forward by lowest prices otherwise every LEB kiddie host would be a success story, a large part of their success is attributed to targeting developers, same as Linode, commissioning articles, sponsoring/attending rubycon, oscon, recently ng-conf, or local dev meetups etc... Now more than ever you have to win the hearts and minds of startups and developers in startups, a PHP version selector just doesn't cut it.
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  6. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    DigitalOcean didn't just push forward by lowest prices otherwise every LEB kiddie host would be a success story, a large part of their success is attributed to targeting developers, same as Linode, commissioning articles, sponsoring/attending rubycon, oscon, recently ng-conf, or local dev meetups etc... Now more than ever you have to win the hearts and minds of startups and developers in startups, a PHP version selector just doesn't cut it.
    Oh but you can't compare DO with kiddie hosts. DO have a big board of investors, I think we all know that.

    And yes mainly is because of the prices and the Cloud marketing. I don't know if you have noticed but DO main competitor is Linode which is another company that claims to be Cloud. Linode prices are far higher. Entry $5 vs Entry $20.00 , oh plus DO is SSD, thats a damn bargain. Of course they did pushed prices MAINLY.

    And Linode compete with RackSpace, which makes Linode look like a WOW deal. So yes, prices...

    With that prices I can deploy destroy all day...Why bothering installing the LAMP locally...
    --

  7. #32
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    The problem with hosting is that it's pretty much turned into a turnkey operation. Anyone with a few $100 dollars can have their own web hosting business setup in no time and with little experience about hosting. For example, here's a breakdown of what it would cost to get setup for shared hosting:

    • WHMCS License: ~$250
    • VPS (with cPanel License) or reseller account: ~$20/mo
    • Softaculous VPS License: $12/yr
    • Logo: ~$30
    • Domain name: ~$12/yr
    • SSL Certificate: ~$12/yr


    If you add that all up, it's about $320 to get setup and then you pay whatever recurring costs down the road. Compare this to years ago when none of this software was around and you would pay $1000s of dollars to get setup, and with any luck you would get your money back in no time because there was not a lot of competition around.

    Because of how easy it is for people to start a web hosting company and all the competition people have no problem in charging low prices for their services. They're also usually a one man show so they're not having to pay anyone for their time.

    There's really no solution in setting standards on who should or shouldn't be allowed to use WHT. WHT sort of already filters out people with their reviews section.
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  8. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by CBH-Nick View Post
    The problem with hosting is that it's pretty much turned into a turnkey operation. Anyone with a few $100 dollars can have their own web hosting business setup in no time and with little experience about hosting. For example, here's a breakdown of what it would cost to get setup for shared hosting:

    • WHMCS License: ~$250
    • VPS (with cPanel License) or reseller account: ~$20/mo
    • Softaculous VPS License: $12/yr
    • Logo: ~$30
    • Domain name: ~$12/yr
    • SSL Certificate: ~$12/yr


    If you add that all up, it's about $320 to get setup and then you pay whatever recurring costs down the road. Compare this to years ago when none of this software was around and you would pay $1000s of dollars to get setup, and with any luck you would get your money back in no time because there was not a lot of competition around.

    Because of how easy it is for people to start a web hosting company and all the competition people have no problem in charging low prices for their services. They're also usually a one man show so they're not having to pay anyone for their time.

    There's really no solution in setting standards on who should or shouldn't be allowed to use WHT. WHT sort of already filters out people with their reviews section.
    You can even get started with less than $100 actually with almost no knowledge. Most reseller hosting providers now offer free WHMCS, domain, and SSL for just about $20/m. You could also just dump something on paint and create your logo for free. It's so easy starting a web hosting business these days which is saturating the marketplace.

  9. #34
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    I don't know if you have noticed but DO main competitor is Linode which is another company that claims to be Cloud.
    I *did* specifically mention Linode in the post you replied to, Linode have large market share because they target developers not because they compete with rackspace on price. Developers sing Linode's praise all day long twitter, conferences, irc etc...
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  10. #35
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    There is a reason that my participation here has dwindled significantly...

  11. #36
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    *

    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    I *did* specifically mention Linode in the post you replied to, Linode have large market share because they target developers not because they compete with rackspace on price. Developers sing Linode's praise all day long twitter, conferences, irc etc...
    LOL how you can know all of them are developers from just such small tweets, with nothing related to development... RANDOM / / /

    Now continuing the reply: Is because of the value they are getting for what they are paying.

    Linode best feature is the support staff... If you read all the tweets, that's all is about. Oh and free upgrades... Again--> big value, low price.

    Now raise that price at 300% , and let see how many good reviews we will see.

    We can argue in this for a few days back and forward.
    You got your point I got mine. Moving on.
    --

  12. #37
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    Many read, many are smart, many never post.
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  13. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by IGobyTerry View Post
    Again, I don't think WHT has much to worry about: as long as they provide an open medium to discuss web hosting, the forum will always maintain a continued high level of activity.
    I might be dreaming, but...I noticed activity growing (e.g. more discussion threads in Web Hosting) in WHT over the years. Additionally, there are now more specific threads for more specific subjects.

  14. #39
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    WHT is not the market (the just control a fair share lol). If you can't convince your own target market to pay your set pricing, you have more to worry about than the WHT business model.

    You either need to adjust your target market, adjust your business plan, or adjust to other means of advertising.

    Pricing limitations is a terrible idea. I may be able to get servers at a much lower cost than some other guy and therefore I could offer them at a lower cost. Just wouldn't work. Plus it's none of WHT's business how much of a margin I'd like to set on servers I sell.
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  15. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    Many read, many are smart, many never post.
    And many are banned as well.

  16. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by bear View Post
    Are you suggesting we start setting pricing minimums for providers?

    The market has become flooded, and with that the price wars began. We're not here to prevent cheap offers, and it's not what I'd consider our place to say who can advertise what here as long as it's legal and they can provide what they sell.

    As a provider of non budget offerings, it's up to you to convince buyers that basing a decision on price alone is not the best option, and show why your product is better for them, no?
    +1 on this.

    Same thing I said to other member here few days ago.

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  17. #42
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    These "cheap" providers wont be around for long, they will soon be out of pocket because they cant keep up with their prices. I remember seeing not so long ago a provider offering unlimited shared hosting for $1 a month its crazy.

    I don't want to get into the whole unlimited debate but its WHT own fault for allowing such offers to be made, whether or not they thought the forum was getting too quiet so they had to make some changes but it was the wrong decision. Then we all sit here wondering why we are seeing all these fly by web hosting providers offering ridiculous prices.

    The only good thing that has come from this is the good guys are here to pick up the pieces.

  18. #43
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    What if WHT started to require the company to be registered, and posting the organization number? Then we would get the most people with no intentions to stay, to not advertise here
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  19. #44
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    Discussion of minimum prices may be illegal

    An unrelated industry group forum I am involved in was advised by several attorneys to avoid any discussion of minimum pricing on public forum boards. Some industries had gotten into trouble with federal agencies for "price fixing." charged with violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. It was from seemingly innocent comments like " I would not take that work for less than $25 per hour."

  20. #45
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    Having also been here to watch the evolution of this forum, my belief is that it's simply the industry itself that has changed. You're focusing your frustration on WHT when it's the wider scene of innumerable web hosting providers competing on nothing but price and consumers who don't understand any better — just like they didn't 10 years ago. The difference is that hosts can get away with charging lower prices than ever due to the financial and technical requirements of hosting being so low. An absolute buffoon can set up a reasonable-looking hosting company now. Just look at how many hosts use the Racksite theme, for pete's sake. I counted at least 10 a few weeks ago!

    For me, the most disappointing thing about hosting is how little true innovation there is. Sure we have waves where every provider starts offering clustered hosting, SSDs, etc but they're all just copying from someone else who did it first. But what about developing excellent and unique tools for managing things? What about engineering truly breakthrough levels of performance? What about providing software set-ups that almost feel magic like ASP.NET and PHP running in the same folder? This doesn't happen because 99% of hosting providers are ran by monkeys who just use ready-to-go solutions and don't have the first idea about how to put something like Heroku together.

    The reality is that most web hosting providers just spew out the same nonsense:

    • Latest hardware!
    • Support that really cares!
    • Good prices!
    • SSD!
    • cPanel and Softaculous!
    • Cloud!
    • 'Fantabulousorrific' support!


    Everyone follows the same template, nobody brings anything interesting to the table. When all you can really say about your service is that your performance is high and you offer great support, what's really differentiating you? You're just another host offering cPanel. You're a commodity. When describing you, all people can say is 'Oh, yeah those guys are great, they... er, well they're just good'.

    In fact, as far as I'm concerned the only difference between the budget hosts the OP clearly sees as vastly inferior and his own operating is the pricing. Just go and look at the NetDepot '10 reasons to go with us' page — the same things I've read on a thousand other hosting sites over the years. Just another provider offering the same services as countless others, maybe with better support than some.

    This industry is a mess of unimaginative mediocrity, and while I don't necessarily endorse these hosts a lot more of you would do well to pay attention to how exactly companies like Digital Ocean, Linode, Media Temple, Rackspace, Heroku, Fortrabbit, Nodejitsu, and many others get where they are. I'll give you a clue: check out their control panels and how they network with the community via events, sponsorships, and sharing knowledge.

    Also look at what technologies they support. While providers like Gandi let you set up any combination of PHP/NodeJS/Python and MySQL/MongoDB/PostgreSQL, most providers think it's smart that they offer multiple versions of PHP and use an Nginx/Varnish reverse proxy. You don't see many hosts here even offering NodeJS — the current darling of the development world — because there's no easy turnkey solution and it might be a bit hard. Easier to just be yet another PHP/MySQL cPanel host, right?
    Last edited by Ryan Williams; 01-21-2014 at 08:12 AM.

  21. #46
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    This industry is a mess of unimaginative mediocrity, and while I don't necessarily endorse these hosts a lot more of you would do well to pay attention to how exactly companies like Digital Ocean, Linode, Media Temple, Rackspace, Heroku, Fortrabbit, Nodejitsu, and many others get where they are. I'll give you a clue: check out their control panels and how they network with the community via events, sponsorships, and sharing knowledge.
    Spot on. Every cpanel host is familiar with HostGator/EIG sale, but no one took notice that Heroku sold to SalesForce for almost as much (212m vs 225m) before turning a profit if I remember correctly.

    support. While providers like Gandi let you set up any combination of PHP/NodeJS/Python and MySQL/MongoDB/PostgreSQL, most providers think it's smart that they offer multiple versions of PHP and use an Nginx/Varnish reverse proxy. You don't see many hosts here even offering NodeJS — the current darling of the development world — because there's no easy turnkey solution and it might be a bit hard. Easier to just be yet another PHP/MySQL cPanel host, right?
    You hit the nail on the head similar to webfaction, most hosts here would run to wikipedia if one mentioned node.js, python+django, ruby+rails, golang, erlang, clojure/scala/anything-else on jvm, etc.. Time isn't on the average hosts side, and the longer they rely on that heap of junk popular control panel to pull them up to the mark the more consolidated the market will get..
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  22. #47
    I believe this is a general topic supply/demand more than WHT waiting around to die.
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  23. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougy View Post
    There is a reason that my participation here has dwindled significantly...
    Too much beer?
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  24. #49
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    I agree with most of the comments in this thread. I used to read/post on WHT constantly but at some point I just didn't have the time to post anymore and I needed to focus on operations. When things calmed down I came back and the whole landscape had changed.

    I don't think it's a particularly bad thing considering most of the new people are potential customers rather than competition but I am nostalgic for the old days when posting on WHT meant hob-knobbing with your industry peers.

  25. #50
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    Plain and simple the times are changing.

    It doesn't matter if it was 14 years ago or last month. There has always been and will always be 'that guy' or 'that company' who offers something that is considered ridiculous during that time period.

    Only time will tell if their idea was stupid or brilliant.

    Many of the posters are correct on here that this is a cycle. Everyone has to watch their bottom line and plan for growth, as your budget changes as you grow, that is what puts a lot of companies in trouble. Going from a solo operation to adding one or two employees may not be terrible, but then when you need to grow from that, all of a sudden adding more and more employees for different roles profit margins shrink and that's when they usually fold or sell out.

    Everyone needs to realize that WHT is not the hosting market, if I were to guess I would say WHT might represent 5-10% of the market and how it acts. The price points the OP is complaining about are targeting individual consumers and websites which are disproportionally represented on WHT and the internet in general. It is a lot rarer to see the purchasing agents or IT managers of medium to large size businesses here however, and they make up a large portion of the industry sales.

    All in all, I wouldn't worry about WHT and what others are doing, simply find your path and your passion and follow it with all you've got.
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