241–250 of 274 posts
The fairest way to offer "lifetime" or "unlimited" plans is to include a simple warranty: "If we ever cancel this plan, we will refund your money in full."
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I'm guessing from http://textusers.com/wiki/VC200 this $200 hosting offer was in 2004, eight years ago. $200 up-front comes to a bit above $2 a month. In 2004, shared hosting with PHP/MySQL was the standard hosting package. A good quality Cpanel account at that time was about $15-$20 per month. So you've gotten an exceptionally good deal. Around that time Dreamhost became the place to be. quickly followed by a series…
A few corrections. Dreamhost isn't and wasn't ever cPanel. It got hot back in '01 / '02. The outages in 2004 weren't lengthy, were mostly DoS and got blown way out of proportion by people who thought $10/month was a kingly sum that entitled them to dedicated-server quality. The quality of Dreamhost's shared hosting hasn't really diminished over the years and it's still perfectly adequate for low traffic PHP or even R…
* principle over actual experience
* a blogger over someone with actual knowledge and technical expertise
* an undefined "fair price"
* an expectation that comfortably exceeds the current delivery levels
* intention and integrity
And what you ended up with is a typical shared hosting company experience, one that lasted a whole lot longer than a large number of other web hosts.
I can't help but feel that a large number of people would be happier if Joyent went down in a big ball of flames suddenly, rather than an orderly and planned 60-plus day notice of a shutdown of their service, in favour of focusing more on a better and more sustainable business model.
Businesses grow, industries grow and change. There's not much of a sustainable business in shared-hosting, the margins are too razor-thin got that, the middle and top end has been chomped off by affordable VPS offerings. Lifers seem appalled they are effectively paying the same price as everyone else.
The rest of your post seems to be on a personal crusade against the technical "co-founder". Why not the original blogger co-founder who promised a service he could not work with someone to deliver?
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I'm guessing from http://textusers.com/wiki/VC200 this $200 hosting offer was in 2004, eight years ago. $200 up-front comes to a bit above $2 a month. In 2004, shared hosting with PHP/MySQL was the standard hosting package. A good quality Cpanel account at that time was about $15-$20 per month. So you've gotten an exceptionally good deal. Around that time Dreamhost became the place to be. quickly followed by a series…
The law isn't unreasonable. If you have a cash-flow sustainable business but you've taken on too many obligations you can restructure in bankruptcy. Of course that'll wipe out your equity holders but they are supposed to be behind creditors. As for laughing at lawsuits, I think you will find that most companies don't. I hate to tell you but being a hip new economy company doesn't impress judges.
Neither does insisting on a full refund after 8 years of consuming their services.
To make any of them work to full effect, we'd probably have to band together? Any argument as to which method is preferred? CCT
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Not really -- they're objecting to having invested in the early stages of a company in good faith that the company would keep its promises. If they wanted dirt-cheap shared hosting, there were plenty of other ways to get it, even at the time (1and1's three-year free deal comes to mind). Most of the people I know who still use their lifetime accounts use them for hosting small static sites, e-mail, et cetera, with the…
Exactly. The founding story goes something like this: Dean Allen had built a CMS (TextPattern) and he, along with other TextPattern users, wanted a hosting provider that would support it in a no-hassle way. He couldn't find one that fit his needs, so decided to create his own; after discussing and rejecting formal VC methods, he turned instead to his userbase with "an opportunity to acquire a piece of TextDrive at it…
That strikes me as the kind of investor a company wouldn't want.
Great, you bootstrapped a company, and they used those funds to grow. And in return all you got was a shared hosting account that's lasted about 8 years. You should have gone with the options - that's where the real money for investors comes from.
And VCs know the vast majority of startups fail. Some spectacularly fail or succeed, some run out of funds, some pivot, some change direction, and some just grow into sustainable businesses. This is one of the latter.
Blame both founders for their lack of vision - in not seeing shared-hosting as a dead-end business model, which was clearly evident round abou 2006. But don't blame the business for making the right decision to close down a non-performing service.
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"Scroll down and you'll find users whose per-month equivalent is comparable to a bottom-end Linode VPS." They are objecting to equivalently paying -- at worst -- bottom-end Linode VPS prices for web hosting. That's why I have this bemused look on my face.
You don't get it. TextDrive was founded and sold on a vision. Imagine what will happen if in a few years Dalton decides to stick ads all over App.net and send threatening letters to developers in the name of "curating the user experience". That's where the righteous indignation is coming from.
There seems to be a confusion about whether you lifers have paid up-front for a long term shared-hosting account or whether you are investors into the business. If you are investors, you should probably have taken options, rather than a free shared-hosting account.
"Imagine what will happen if in a few years Dalton decides to stick ads all over App.net and send threatening letters to developers in the name of "curating the user experience". That's where the righteous indignation is coming from."
Then I don't renew my $100 a year developer account and walk away. I'm not investing in the company, I'm paying for a service that's on offer. When I'm not happy with the service I decide to no longer spend any more money there.
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On a related note: where is good for hosting two small websites? I'd like to be able to log in with SSH and get an actual Unix shell (and not have to pay too much, as the websites are neither large nor popular).
I highly recommend Webfaction: http://www.webfaction.com?affiliate=hammertime Yes, I just shamelessly put in an affiliate link, but the service really is very good. It's shared hosting but you get SSH, a smart admin panel and very reasonable prices for your memory. After a few years using it, I'm also happy to report that their technical support is excellent - timely, helpful and knowledgeable.
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As long as it's not terribly mission critical I'd suggest a VPS. Since you have a virtualized server you get everything you mentioned (and the responsibility of keeping the damn thin up to date). Take a look at http://lowendbox.com You're likely to find deals in the $20/yr range for small instances with ~128MB RAM. Expect 99% uptime and you'll be pleasantly surprised with the third nine.
The deals on lowendbox are a bit too low end. The providers often disappear after a few months.
Jason Hoffman says that and other interesting things about the EOL here (read all of his posts):
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see footer of the page. They (TextDrive) were already acquired at the time of the offer.
Aha. That would indeed make a difference. ;) Thanks.