Rich
01-21-1999, 12:06 AM
The following is not intended as a critique of FQuest but rather just one person's opinion of some disturbing trends in the hosting industry in general:
Disturbing trend #1: Provide unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited processing to each subscriber for $1 per month.
While I have exagerated the current practice, one only has to notice the hosting advertisements as one traverses the Web to notice that the trend is to offer more for less. While most hosts will state that this is due to "stiff competitive pressure", I have yet to find a hosting company that isn't getting its fair share of requests and signups for new service. It's almost as if every host believes it must have *all* the business right now.
The majority of a hosts new customers are 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time site owners. Many are hopping around from site to site because "my last site [which they joined a month ago] went down for 30 minutes yesterday." Most customers are searching for the Holy
Grail and, unfortunately, most hosts are trying to provide it to them!
Ironically, the end result of trying to offer too much for too little is exactly what people don't want--slowdowns and downtime.
Disturbing Trend #2: When business is growing faster than procurement/setup/installation can keep up with it the current practice is to continue to overload already overloaded systems with new customers.
This trend is also self-defeating because it sends the message that the customers who have been with the host for a long time are not as important as that "next new customer."
Disturbing trend #3: Most hosts believe (and I have found most "admins" share this belief) that the next new technology or level of implementation will resolve the current problems.
This "grass is greener" type of attitude keeps the current trends (and its resulting problems) in place. The three trends become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The real truth is that the same practices/policies are required rather you want to maintain high-reliablity for one server or one hundred.
I have written all this just to go on the record that I believe that most customers that are (or will be) long-term customers (as opposed to the jumper-around-ers and the flash-in-the-pan-ers) are willing to pay a reasonable price for a reasonable amount of resources. Most would be willing to pay a "little more" to a host that practiced freezing new additions when resources reached a high water mark. And they should be willing to pay a "little more" for processing intensive services like SSL and "medium" scripts plus a "little more" for extensive services like databases/shopping carts, chat, or search capability. Unfortunately, in the current marketplace, it doesn't really matter rather you pay $100 per month or $10 per month, the same three disturbing trends are in place at all hosting companies.
Customers must come to understand that you get what you pay for and hosting companies must stop trying to sell the Holly Grail for $1 per month and instead sell their historical uptime/response time charts for whatever the market will bear. The customers will come--and stay.
--I hate when I learn that the minority view means just me--
------------------
Rich
"What time is it in _____?"
www.timezoneconverter.com (http://www.timezoneconverter.com)
[This message has been edited by Rich (edited 01-20-99).]
[This message has been edited by Rich (edited 01-20-99).]
Disturbing trend #1: Provide unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited processing to each subscriber for $1 per month.
While I have exagerated the current practice, one only has to notice the hosting advertisements as one traverses the Web to notice that the trend is to offer more for less. While most hosts will state that this is due to "stiff competitive pressure", I have yet to find a hosting company that isn't getting its fair share of requests and signups for new service. It's almost as if every host believes it must have *all* the business right now.
The majority of a hosts new customers are 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time site owners. Many are hopping around from site to site because "my last site [which they joined a month ago] went down for 30 minutes yesterday." Most customers are searching for the Holy
Grail and, unfortunately, most hosts are trying to provide it to them!
Ironically, the end result of trying to offer too much for too little is exactly what people don't want--slowdowns and downtime.
Disturbing Trend #2: When business is growing faster than procurement/setup/installation can keep up with it the current practice is to continue to overload already overloaded systems with new customers.
This trend is also self-defeating because it sends the message that the customers who have been with the host for a long time are not as important as that "next new customer."
Disturbing trend #3: Most hosts believe (and I have found most "admins" share this belief) that the next new technology or level of implementation will resolve the current problems.
This "grass is greener" type of attitude keeps the current trends (and its resulting problems) in place. The three trends become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The real truth is that the same practices/policies are required rather you want to maintain high-reliablity for one server or one hundred.
I have written all this just to go on the record that I believe that most customers that are (or will be) long-term customers (as opposed to the jumper-around-ers and the flash-in-the-pan-ers) are willing to pay a reasonable price for a reasonable amount of resources. Most would be willing to pay a "little more" to a host that practiced freezing new additions when resources reached a high water mark. And they should be willing to pay a "little more" for processing intensive services like SSL and "medium" scripts plus a "little more" for extensive services like databases/shopping carts, chat, or search capability. Unfortunately, in the current marketplace, it doesn't really matter rather you pay $100 per month or $10 per month, the same three disturbing trends are in place at all hosting companies.
Customers must come to understand that you get what you pay for and hosting companies must stop trying to sell the Holly Grail for $1 per month and instead sell their historical uptime/response time charts for whatever the market will bear. The customers will come--and stay.
--I hate when I learn that the minority view means just me--
------------------
Rich
"What time is it in _____?"
www.timezoneconverter.com (http://www.timezoneconverter.com)
[This message has been edited by Rich (edited 01-20-99).]
[This message has been edited by Rich (edited 01-20-99).]