I agree
for 50 bucks yea right

The industry will change, yes, but it is changing for the worse.
All you need to do is look at some of the big providers to see that.

Godaddy 20gb space and 1000gb transfer for $15.96/month
1&1 30gb space and 1500gb transfer for $19.99/month

The list goes on and it's getting worse.

Agreed Blue. I've been on the inside and outside for years now and looking back I can say that the industry does appear to be changing for the worse.

Technology is improving daily and costs are coming down each day. This has lowered costs for many hosts in the form of dedicated server providers and other more affordable services for small businesses. This is normal for virtually any industry - technology commonly progresses as prices steadily decrease.

However, for the hosting industry, it has also meant larger and larger scams. Blue pointed out some of the "big boys" that are ultimately running the same exact scheme that these unlimited and unmetered hosts are doing. That's not a good sign.

It is pretty aweful - my only real surprise is that it's GoDaddy and 1&1 doing this crap now, not just the fly-by-night hosting operations. No good.

Corey, I think we* shouldn't be really bothered by this since GoDaddy has started to receive negative reviews all over the web.

*By WE, I mean those who run web hosting companies.

Best,

Blue - I think I _may_ have seen the same advert as you...or at least similar. I've been out of the industry for nearly a year now and nearly choked when I saw that my website (which in bandwidth terms pushes an average dedicated server package to it's limits) could be hosted for under $100.

What has happened ? ;\

I suppose that's true, but I'm always skeptical of the hosts constantly getting negative reviews. It seems to me that most the time, negative reviews are the only reviews people want to make on the hosting forums, and in an industry with so many players a part of me wonders if the rock-star mentality of 'no publicity is bad publicity' is actually working as a marketing strategy for certain companies.

It's kind of a pessimistic approach, and certainly not a game I would ever intend to play into, but it's always a lingering thought in my mind when I see those reviews of a few certain companies. I do believe the patient and honest companies will win out in the long run though.

Cheers,

Wow, that's nothing I have a plan that gives your like that, and maybe more for 2.95$/mo. lol, that's a little to much.

It looks like extreme overselling for me

I sell reseller accounts as part of my packages. One of the most often asked questions I get would be... "Is overselling allowed?"

I have to admit I was tempted a few times because that is almost always a deal breaker. But you know that someone overselling like that has ethics issues... and I would rather not be on the recieving end of that kind of publicity...

Wow! What a deal! Sign me up! (just kidding) In my recent first-ever search for a reliable, ethical web host, I also found the hundreds of web hosters difficult to wade through and to distinguish one from the other. Most so called 'reviews' that I have found have very little credibility when looking beneath the surface. In the end I did find one that I am confident of, but its not one of those that offer 1000 GB of space and 50 GB bandwidth for $2.99 a month. Not that paying more guarantees reliability, but I am confident that my web host holds honesty and integrity as important principles. There are some good ones among the pack of bad apples, they are just hard as heck to find. --- Terry

I'm trying to get something started on this sort of thing. It's a crusade I guess you could say but I watch (I've been in WHT a long time but I'm new here) and see all these people getting scammed. I've even been a victim myself actually but that was a long time ago.

It's not done (nor even really public) at this point but hopefully, well, I'll share the idea...

There are a number of people who are real hosts. They're not scammers. They say what they do and do what they say and could, in my opinion, find some sort of ISO standardization that they could fall under. Unfortunately I don't know of one specifically for the web hosting industry.

So, I figured I'd buy a domain and get working on it as a spare time project. It's going to be screwedbyyourhosting.info (oh please - really - don't look yet... I was mucking about with a CMS and I really am NOT good at that) and there will be offers to let people support the site in exchange for advertising with the logic being that they're probably NOT going to scam customers and be spending money on advertising really. That was one part of it but that's just the financial method to keep it running.

Beyond that there would be a forum (and there is already and I've been playing in it) where people can help as well as get help. Not too many people know that they can follow ICANN's rules and get their domain name back should they have been silly enough to register it through a scamming company. It's possible and even do-able. There's more than that and an "independent" third party who'd contact the scam hosts and make public the dialog between them would go a long ways as well as people advocating on behalf of the scammed client.

There are, at times, non-intentional hosting companies who (for what ever reason) end up going down and rather then being listed as scammers this would provide a means for them to communicate their problems and schedules or, alternatively, perhaps to even broker their current clients to existing hosting companies. There are a lot of potential benefits and (I'm sure I'll ping here when it's time to ask for help) the ideas are just beginning to work in my head.

I think I got the idea from Dan's honest hosts list. That's a nice list to have but - equally important - is a list of scam-hosts and things that go along with it. For instance today I came across a listing in WHT about a designer who... Well you can read the forum but it's not just hosting but rather the hosting industry. So it's like the opposite and I hope, at some point, to have enough people to fill the sponsor section so that I can actually remove my own link. I don't want (I'm not in it for the money believe it or not - I resell [and that's all that we do] because we can then provide support for a limited number of people and get hosted for free with our own sites and projects) to make it seem like it's intentions are to specifically make me any income because, well, it's not? It just seemed like a hole that needed filling that isn't really filled at this point. So this week will be spent designing that and tweaking it a bit more. I might have to commission a banner or anything similar but that's fine I suppose.

There's a limit to realistic overselling. Can it be done? Sure but it needs to, in my humble opinion, be done properly by people who are willing to take the time to watch and see the results and by people who are willing and able to upgrade the very instant that they reach the rational threshold.

How about a TB of storage and 1 TB of bandwidth for $6.95?
http://www.lypha.com/hosting_plans.shtml

*chuckles* It's only $4.95 if you want to sign up for the 2 year agreement.

Anyhow, it's crap like this and like that giving the hosting industry a reputation only slightly lower than a used car salesman. Something should be done to expose and oust the scammers.

Sheesh...

/end rant

KGIII