Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : DreamHost Promotions - Worrisome?

[dcabbar]

Hi All,

It looks like DreamHost has been giving crazy promotions lately, which have been going on for weeks... And, there is basically no-way they can give these without overselling, and I mean they have to oversell "a-lot" to make ends meet with these prices!

I have been reading nice things about DreamHost here, and have been considering them specifically for their RoR support. But, but does anyone have any idea about what is going on, and what is wrong with them? Because, it is pretty clear that these promotions will harm the company in a pretty bad way... And, I am a bit hesitant mainly because of this.

Thanks...

[Canglan]

Their RoR setup seems buggy to me. I have to install/delete/reinstall Typo (an RoR blog script) more than 10 times to get it working. Yes, nothing else, just plain reinstallations. That was pain in the neck.

[mythologen]

Hard to tell their strategy. They could be counting on their customers renewing at the end of their period at regular prices? Or maybe they are substituting their advertising budget with a promotion. Large companies can afford to do things like this.

The only way to find out would be to send in a support ticket.

[ldcdc]

The only way to find out would be to send in a support ticket.

I doubt that would accomplish much. These are strategic decisions, likely to not be revealed to everyone in the company, and even more likely to not be revealed to the outside world.

Only time can say if their gambling will be sustainable and pay off for both the company and the customers.

I see a serious trend where hosts are not using the word "unlmited", but engage in selling these huge packages at very low prices, where the real limit, just like in the case of unlimited hosts, is the amount of server resources used by the site.

[Trip]

For as good as any deal can ever seem, you must keep in mind the rule: You get what you pay for. If you have a hunch that something is wrong, trust your gut, there probably is. You have to agree that if users actually started filling quotas and chewing up the bandwidth offered, that performance would suffer in some capacity on each and every server where that behavior occuring. DreamHost must bank on the fact that this won't happen, and I for one wouldn't be willing to take that chance if I had a site of the least bit of importance. I have seen several people complain about slow speeds at DreamHost, and if they aren't careful, that could only be the beginning...

It's your gamble,
Trip

[Tina J]

What is the promotion details that has you worried? I'm not familiar with their offerings, which is why I ask.

--Tina

[ieee488]

the deal is domain name and hosting for $9/year

[JNadolski]

I beleave trip said it the best you get what you pay for. They do have a nice package but it is very cheap, but there Name DreamHost serves its meaning for the time being.

[Alexatek]

Originally Posted by Trip

For as good as any deal can ever seem, you must keep in mind the rule: You get what you pay for. If you have a hunch that something is wrong, trust your gut, there probably is. You have to agree that if users actually started filling quotas and chewing up the bandwidth offered, that performance would suffer in some capacity on each and every server where that behavior occuring. DreamHost must bank on the fact that this won't happen, and I for one wouldn't be willing to take that chance if I had a site of the least bit of importance. I have seen several people complain about slow speeds at DreamHost, and if they aren't careful, that could only be the beginning...

It's your gamble,
Trip

This isn't really rocket science... It's how the entire airline industry runs and it's a proven method. Airlines always "overbook" flights, knowing full well that not every ticket holder will show up for every flight. It's very rare that they do. When that happens, they apologize and give away some free tickets.

If they didn't do this, we'd all be paying significantly more for tickets.

The vast majority of web hosts operate this same way. They oversell. How many sites on these "oversold" shared servers are really "business critical" sites? Most are blogs, personal sites, hobby sites, test sites, etc. etc.

If the host oversells, and enough users cause slowness (or even downtime) on the server, the host will take the appropriate actions to resolve the problem, when it occurs (or will lose their customers). So, a few hundred blogs, and hobby sites run slow for a while. Big deal... If you have a site that you need near 100% uptime for, and reliably fast response time, then you use the appropriate plan, be it a managed server, your own server, or a limited shared server.

I personally use Dreamhost's "budget" plan for 10 or so "hobby" websites. The response is fine. However, my "real" website, the one for my business, lives right here in my office.

[spiffyspiff]

I'd be wary.

Never thought I'd have to say this about DreamHost, which up until the last 3 months or so has been very good to me (I've been with them for almost 5 years, currently speccing out a new home :\). But yeah, they are most definitely experiencing "growing pains"--the number in the support queue is constantly very high, support time takes longer, downtimes are more frequent, etc.

This has also been acknowledged by the words of DreamHost's staff itself. An excerpt from Support Overload thread on their forum by Josh, one of the "honchos":

"
We have been having a huge support load the last three weeks actually. It caught us a little by surprise, and we've been adding support personnel rapidly in an attempt to catch-up, but there's generally a few months lag between hiring somebody and them becoming a really productive member of the support team.

We kind of had a "perfect storm" of support due to:

1. The 888 sale caused a lot of new signups which always means a lot more support.

2. The 777 sale was a year ago, and so a whole bunch of people are up for their first renewal at regular prices which is causing a lot of billing-related support.

3. We JUST finished upgrading all our shared hosting servers to sarge from woody, and although it was a pretty smooth process that always generates some support.

4. Finally, we made some fairly big changes to the way our web panel works, which made for some confusion as well as some bugs that have all pretty much been ironed out now.

From these four events our daily support load literally DOUBLED starting in late September. We sort of expect now that 888 is over, the sarge updating is done, 777 is past it's year anniversary, the panel changes have sunk in, and we've added some more support people that things will hopefully calm down within the next week. "

This was the thing that finally sold me on looking for a new host. Every single one of those factors was both a) planned in advance, and b) had very predictable consequences. That they are playing "catch up" after the fact is a tell-tale sign to me that they're growing too rapidly to control it, and I no longer trust my sites there.

[Nadabrahma]

Well, I haven't noticed much of all this turbulence. True, I rarely have any reason to use DH's support -- on the few occasions I've had, they've responded in a few hours. Sounds nice that things are expected to "calm down within the next week".

[Trip]

Originally Posted by Alexatek

This isn't really rocket science[...]So, a few hundred blogs, and hobby sites run slow for a while. Big deal... If you have a site that you need near 100% uptime for, and reliably fast response time, then you use the appropriate plan, be it a managed server, your own server, or a limited shared server.

Absolutely right alexa, and you'd think that would be the case. I hope you didn't think my post eluded to the opposite. But unfortunately, most WHT'ers in search of hosting aren't as educated as you are, and the amount of b|tching and moaning can be staggering when one looks at the problem as being easily fixable, before one even signs up with an oversold host.

I personally use Dreamhost's "budget" plan for 10 or so "hobby" websites. The response is fine.

You'd be surprised to see how many people take even their personal or hobby sites seriously around here. Yey they still go and sign up with the next run-of-the-mill, oversold host to save the all-important dollar, and b|tch incessantly when their host underperforms. It's plain and simply asinine.

Originally Posted by spiffyspiff

This was the thing that finally sold me on looking for a new host. Every single one of those factors was both a) planned in advance, and b) had very predictable consequences. That they are playing "catch up" after the fact is a tell-tale sign to me that they're growing too rapidly to control it, and I no longer trust my sites there.

That's exactly right. I'll reference BigBison from another thread concerning Site5 when he said that one of the worst things a business can do is start spelling out their problems as excuses to why the customer is experiencing his problems. Are they being accountale? I guess so. But is it professional? Not at all. If your host was really that accountable, they wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place.

Try telling customers of DreamHost that this stuff is ok because, "Hey, they're overselling, so it's no biggy" and I guarantee you the responses won't be overwhelmingly pleasant. My first post was not geared as a blanket statement meant to paint the picture black. It was made for the good of everyone concerned, to let them know that this business practice should be a concern, or at least something worth realizing before people are so quick to click that "SIGN UP NOW!" button without realizing the inherent risk associated with their choice.

Trip

[dcabbar]

Hi All,

You get what you pay for

This is what I have been telling everyone for a long time, and as many of you have stated (and as I repeatedly brought up before), you gotta accept the fact that these companies are overselling. And, as TRIP mentioned, it really pisses me off when people come here, and complain about budget hosting companies as if they are paying $100/month... Especially those who tell how much money they have lost because of these companies. For god's sake, if you are making that much money, pay $10 - 20 more (per month) and get something more reliable! I have no idea what these people are thinking, honestly!...

Some might be opposed to this, but I tend to divide the "SHARED" web hosting market into 4 generic segments (ranking from top quality to worst quality, at the same time: most expensive to cheapest):

1. Top Notch companies, e.g. FutureQuest.COM and Pair.COM

- Very expensive, at the same time very reliable... If you have a critical site (that you can't host on a dedicated server), and want total reliability, you gotta go with these. Though I must note that, due to stupid/weird db usage constraints, Pair.COM plans (upto $40-50) are not really geared towards serious sites...

2. Reliable companies: e.g. LiquidWeb & FluidHosting

- Expensive: They are not as reliable as (1), but pretty good... I would put e-commerce sites and/or important sites on these. Although I don't have a good experience with FluidHosting, many people praise them and put them in this category.

3. Quality Budget Hosting: e.g. Micfo, Lunarpages, Site5

- Relatively Cheap: They oversell more than (1) and (2) since they are budget hosts. But, they provide reasonably reliable service, hence they are good for community/forum/CMS type of things... If you don't have a critical site, they work great especially for the price they charge... Among these 3, I definitely prefer Micfo. And, in fact, I think Micfo is in the borderline of (2) and (3), or to be honest, they were in the (3) segment, and heading towards (2) at a solid pace.

4. Budget Hosting: Never tried any, will not try any.

- These are the ones that give unlimited everything for $1 / month, and have no idea what they are good for!

Now, my question about DreamHost was to find out where it fits... Looking at their regular (non-promotional) price structure, current customer base and comments on WHT, they seem to fit perfectly in (3). But their latest promotions (especially the fact that it is not a short term thing, but has been going on for weeks instead) put them into (4), hence renders them useless for me. So, I was confused about what to expect from them...



PS: There might be other great/bad hosts within these categories, but the companies I listed here are the ones that I have (been) used/using...

[Trip]

dcabbar, brilliant post! It's about damn time some more people started voicing some sense around here. I liken to your Categories quite a bit; they pretty much seem to mirror my findings and opinions as well.

Although I don't have a good experience with FluidHosting, many people praise them and put them in this category.

Well, I am one of those FH clients, and I'd almost say they belong in category 1, except that they don't own/operate their own datacenter and their staff is less robust (at 6-7 people) than coporate-level. Sadly, I would say Site5 used to be a Category 2 company (back when they had their old website with plans like "Mercury" etc., remember?), but they chose a different focus and I feel they have degraded themselves for it.

But I absolutely agree. Years of the same cyclic nonsense really start to grate on you after a while. You just have to chalk it up to the fact that this place is a crossroads and most of what you read (if you can read it, between all the bad English) goes against what you'd think to be common sense. If it's any consolation, at least there are two of us who realize what a good product is worth.

Trip

[mythologen]

Originally Posted by ldcdc

I doubt that would accomplish much. These are strategic decisions, likely to not be revealed to everyone in the company, and even more likely to not be revealed to the outside world.

I completely agree, it'd still be the only way to find out tho