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GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

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Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#11

Post by DigitalSea »

This news could not make me happier after moving from Mediatemple completely about 6 months ago. I would say I got out just in time. My experience with Media Temple (I was with them since the beginning and all of the teething problems they had with their hosting in the early days) was fairly good. Support was great, but if you soon find you hit the limit of their hosting pretty quickly. They used to market their Grid Server (gS) plans as being "Digg Proof" and it was once upon a time but then eventually the Grid Server plan lacked behind and getting Slashdotted/Digged meant you had to scale up with burst addons.

I would argue that Mediatemple kind of killed themselves in many ways, I can't see how GoDaddy will do much worse to be honest. People put them up on such a high pedestal as they got bigger, they just couldn't live up to their glowing reputation because of how big they were growing which is a problem not many companies can say they have, Support stayed timely until the end, but Media Temple lost out to Digital Ocean and Linode big time and just couldn't keep up in the end.

I wish GoDaddy all the best, but for the moment I am very happy with my Linode 1024 virtual server plan which never buckles under anything I've thrown at it thus far. Even hitting the front-page of HN once upon a time didn't cause it to break a sweat.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#12

Post by jacques_chester »

A nitpick: he's saying "high profits" when I think he means "high gross profits". It's an important distinction. The low cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) is offset first by the competition and later by the cost of hiring people the manage it and deal with customers.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#13

Post by coderdude »

I've been a Media Temple customer since 2007 and a GoDaddy customer since 2004 [edit: I say 2004 but I don't think that's possible. I must have switched to them sometime after 2006 but I can't recall who my previous registrar was.]. I like both companies just fine though apparently not everyone has been as lucky. I don't know if GD is going to be a good home for mt since GD specializes in cheaper hosting. But...

GoDaddy does a lot to support their customers. Friendly people over the phone. They've walked my dad through some hosting issues he had when he was trying to set a site up. They call me every couple of months to make sure I'm satisfied with everything (and probably try to sell me on that bundled registration). Making them out to be The Devil is too dramatic. And transparent too when he could have linked to the #Philanthropy[1] heading on their Wikipedia page but chose to focus on #Controversies to support a position.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#14

Post by sterlingross »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #8

In the late 90s i was a partner in a hosting company. To this day every time someone asks me to host a small site on my personal server I get flashbacks and the shakes. Never again. Hosting is not a game for people without very strong nerves. I won't even resell hosting.

Hosting is a pretty stressful and thankless industry. Your services can run flawless for years and your clients wont think twice about you, but as soon as the mail server crashes you are somehow evil and ruining their business.

You were smart to get out. I haven't yet.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#15

Post by arkitaip »

lelandbatey wrote: post #4

Web hosting customers are nomads. If your host hasn’t been ruined yet, just wait. This line right here is absolutely sage wisdom. Here are some of the companies I've bought services from, as well as what I remember happening to them: ClubUptime Closed in a disastrous closure due to basically being conned. DirectSpace Still around, haven't changed much VolumeDrive Very sketchy, I don't really know how they're still in…

Very true. I'm currently happy using Webfaction but I just know it's a matter of time before I have to look for a new hosting company.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#16

Post by slig »

wonderyak wrote: post #3

My least horrible experiences have all been with DreamHost as well. Our company did reseller hosting for about 5 years and went through all of the acquisition stuff Marco mentions. We had to exit SoftLayer because they were horrible, only to be brought right back. Hosting is a horrible business. To be good at it and have marketplace success you need to deliver over the top support; which is just unsustainable at scal…

I've been hosting small sites on WebFaction " rel="nofollow">https://www.webfaction.com/>. I never had problems of downtime and the support has been reasonably responsive the couple of times I needed.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#17

Post by pjbrunet »

lelandbatey wrote: post #4

Web hosting customers are nomads. If your host hasn’t been ruined yet, just wait. This line right here is absolutely sage wisdom. Here are some of the companies I've bought services from, as well as what I remember happening to them: ClubUptime Closed in a disastrous closure due to basically being conned. DirectSpace Still around, haven't changed much VolumeDrive Very sketchy, I don't really know how they're still in…

I have a long list too. You need off-site backups because that day will come.

Funny, my first real host (he.net) is still in business. Maybe it's true you get what you pay for ;-)

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#19

Post by wonderyak »

driverdan wrote: post #10
wonderyak wrote: post #3

My least horrible experiences have all been with DreamHost as well. Our company did reseller hosting for about 5 years and went through all of the acquisition stuff Marco mentions. We had to exit SoftLayer because they were horrible, only to be brought right back. Hosting is a horrible business. To be good at it and have marketplace success you need to deliver over the top support; which is just unsustainable at scal…

DH's shared hosting is bad, possibly horrible. Their shared servers go down frequently. Often they didn't even seem to know the server I'm on was down until I sent a support request. I keep my account for testing and sites I don't really care much about.

Shared hosting is really bad in general. If you happen to be grouped up with people that are constantly hitting their resource limits and/or the box is oversold it can be even worse.

Re: GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting

#20

Post by pjbrunet »

slig wrote: post #16
wonderyak wrote: post #3

My least horrible experiences have all been with DreamHost as well. Our company did reseller hosting for about 5 years and went through all of the acquisition stuff Marco mentions. We had to exit SoftLayer because they were horrible, only to be brought right back. Hosting is a horrible business. To be good at it and have marketplace success you need to deliver over the top support; which is just unsustainable at scal…

I've been hosting small sites on WebFaction " rel="nofollow">https://www.webfaction.com/> . I never had problems of downtime and the support has been reasonably responsive the couple of times I needed.

You never had trouble but come back here in few years. WebFaction registered September 28, 2003. 10 years in business, not bad. But if you start recommending hosts there's going to be a list here 10 miles long.
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