Just An Idea About Shared Hosting

This is just an idea about shared hosting... since so many people seem to have problems with that.

This is not currently a "real thing", so this is why I am posting it here in the forums, and not in the Market Place.

It is a request for discussion.

How about if I setup a "Honesty Based" Shared Hosting service....

Where, you:

A) Only pay if it works. (Except for a $1 refundable sign up fee to verify you.)
B) Billing is done AFTER each month's of service, not before.  You pay AFTER you used the service that month and only if you found the service acceptable.

Example:

Sign Up on January 1st with a $1 sign up fee.  The $1 fee is refunded to you.
First Billing is on February 1st, for the month of January.
Your next billing would then be on March 1st, for the month of February.
And so on...

It would have all the goodies, like Softlayer servers, Dolphin server optimization, LiteSpeed, R1Soft Continuous Data Protection, and shared Ray Media Server access.

Support would be ticket (email) based.

Comments?

-Smoge

NOTE: This topic was initially hidden as an advertisement. In this particular case the discussion is "on the edge", since it is obviously promoting the poster's services, but we also find it a worthy discussion that may potentially be beneficial for the entire community and may lead to other hosting providers to consider offering similar "packages".

Additionally, we see more and more hosting related posts here at Forums, so we decided to create a category for such posts, where hosting providers would be allowed to post about their new Dolphin-related services/offers. Bumping posts, and spammy re-announcements would not be allowed, but otherwise - we'd have a place for "everything hosting". This topic will also be moved to there.

On topic:

I think it's a great idea and should be financially viable for you too. Happy client would be happy to pay more.

Although this action was not taken by me, I would like to point out that as Andrew stated, this is "obviously promoting the poster's services". I can understand why this post was hidden as it violates the BoonEx Unity Constitution section 9.

Your decision to create a new forum section for hosting/services advertisements "should" resolve the issue with these types of posts residing in any other forum category except Dolphin Hosting. But can you tell me if this section is limited to Dolphin Hosting only or ANY type of Dolphin service/hosting/advertisement? I think the Moderators will need to know where the line gets drawn..

Now all we (Moderators) have to do is to figure out where the "spamming" level kicks in..  Guess we will play that by ear..

Also, modmysite, I know I just posted my own comment in your topic, so if you would like to create a new one without these replies, I will hide this one after you do.

I don't really see how this is possibly beneficial to the entire community, unless you mean people signing up for his hosting service. It's, as you said, an advertisement for his services. He doesn't mention any other hosting provider, nor does he invite such a discussion. He's referring entirely to his hosting service and whether or not to create a new payment plan along with numerous features added at the bottom of his post. It looks to me like an attempt to hide an advertisement, especially since he knows well that he's not allowed to mention his own hosting service in such situations as this. Before anyone says anything, I'm not saying that it is indeed such a case, but that it would only appear to be.

I can understand the creation of a new forum for discussions about hosting providers, but I don't believe this should include the creation of new topics meant solely to promote your service. I believe such content should be kept in the market, since they are a form of advertisement that seems unfit for a place such as this. I do like the idea of users being able to discuss recommended hosting configurations and what their experience has been with certain providers. I also do not see anything wrong with hosting providers replying to topics when warranted, such as if the topic is by someone asking for a stand-alone media server provider.

I also agree with the comments of my fellow moderator above. If these are the new rules, so be it; I just wanted to share my own opinion on the matter, as well as voice my disagreement concerning the allowing of such topics. If this topic should be allowed, then I will let it be and adapt to the change in rules.

Won't work anyway. Many people have tried the "pay after you get the service" business model and are always left holding the bag. Sign up for this and at some point, there will be enough defaults in customer payments to cause 1 of 2 things. Either the price will go up to compensate or the server will bankrupt itself.

You might be a great server tech, but your business savvy is a bit lacking. I wouldn't use the service.

Also, I agree that this is straight up, an advertisement for your service. If you were really sincere in your approach, you could outline exactly what each shared server would have to guarantee as far as bandwidth, php setup, cpu usage, etc. to be a successful Dolphin host  then tell everyone that you can meet that need.

I agree. The idea will not work. I have been in the business for years as a ISP and used to do hosting. Nope. It won't work.

well i see it as a lure. as explained from AlexT, and we all know, that with Dolphin 7 the requirements on a server, VPS or Dedicated are trying. this is blatant advertisement, and I wrote Andrew Boon about this when it was posted. Yes this is advertisement. This is solely a lure to draw the unknowing into his web of deceit. Does $1.00 hosting really serve a purpose. Most likely not, just enough space or RAM to get the site loaded, then what, the ol' you need to upgrade, your site is using excessive resources based on our fair usage TOS. I dont know what the plan would really be behind paying the dollar after you have hosted for the month, but i see it as nothing more than a means of advertising his services on the forum. the very reason I was considered a conflict of interest and removed from moderator status.

seems the pucker must have fit, because this was report as a violation and it has sense been determined that it should remain as a post.

$1.00 hosting, Free RMS, yeah ok, and exactly how do you consider that to be a business model.

This is a violation of the Rules of Unity, and this person is allowed for whatever reason to strike the rules, and be accepted as viable. I call BULLSHIT On this one, this is potential scheme. if Arvixe or none of the others are able to keep dolphin hosting on shared platforms for $10.99/month then how is this truly a viable forum topic. THIS IS HORSE PUCKS, and it certainly depicts the indication of favortism.

I could care not if this was an ad on the market where it belongs. there was nothing discussed here about the benefit of offering shared hosting, what the pros and cons are of such a platform. what would happen if any one account started bending the CPU with the XML.php file, and causing everybody to be thrown Database Connection Errors because the system cant keep up. It has been stated, that XML will use all available resources up to 100% so throw 20 sites on a server with hundreds of video uploads and video uploads, specifically of the adult nature, and what do you have? a server that is not running.

Yeah its an advertisement directly for his services, with no other reason to post than for monetary gain.

Professional Dolphin Hosting Services [delinked by Andrew Boon]

financially viable did you say? then this is a direct advertisement. otherwise it would be community beneficial?

Wait. I need to chime in here. My site was suuuuper slow. My traffic was dying. People were cancelling accounts. I sent letters to numerous people, no one could fix it, no one knew why. One guy quoted me $500.00 to "recode" my site. My hosting company had no idea why either. This dragged on for 6 months. My site became unusable.

Somehow I got in touch with modmysite. He looked at my server gave me a list of 10 - 15 problems and solutions for each problem. Helped me buy a new server, (not one of his), set it up, monitored it, and my customers can't believe how fast my site is now. Modmysite knows EVERYTHING about servers. So if anyone has a server problem or question I gurantee modmysite can solve it for you. He turned my site around. Doubled my traffic. Things are great again.

I take what he says extremely seriously. Remember even my own hosting company couldn't figure out why it was slow. It was because the server was outdated and too small. Why couldn't my own host company figure that out??? Beats me! But modmysite saved the day!

If you're having server/speed problems go to this guy. He can solve it!

well good that you have a good experience with modmysite. nobody is doubting his ability or knowledge. what is being said here is that he is advertising his services, either disguised or on a frontal.

glad you had a good experience, i can almost bet you were not setup on $1.00 hosting though.

I'll try to explain...

To Moderators:

We see some hosting related talks here sometimes, and very often specific hosting suggestions are relevant, right? Now we have a place where we could move those topics to, instead of just deleting them. This should work well for the cases when Market post is not enough, because discussion is needed. Let's see how it goes. Do go by ear and remove anything that you feel is spammy and should rather be in Market. If the topic is "in place" here at Forums, so be it. I think this post by ModMySite is a good example. This is something that could be discussed professionally, without flashing banners in front of each other. Come on and participate in this topic.

To DosDawg:

I have never seen you or ModMySite personally. We are not affiliated either. We have had plenty of issues with ModMySite before and we have enough reasons NOT to like them. I normally don't look at who's the author of the post until I read it, if at all. I just don't care. The link to your hosting in your post, however, is NOT allowed and you know it. You're very quick to express your resentment and this is getting a little too far. Don't like modmysite? Fine, don't read their posts. Meanwhile, moderators will look after him and after you too.

To Everyone, and on Rules:

Rules that we have are there with one goal - facilitate collaboration of members, bring up useful content and minimise any nuisance, such as spam, fraud, personal attacks, defamation, etc. It is now obvious that we have many members that provide hosting, need hosting and want to discuss hosting. This would naturally include "naming names". We should try to create environment for that. Market is not designed for discussions. If this fails and our hard-working moderators get buried in SPAM - well, we'd just kill the idea and would send the spammers home, but hey, let's try it! We can all shape the way it will work.

Re: post by ModMySite:

This topic has been initially hidden by moderator, as per Rules and it was a right thing to do. I have noticed this hidden topic and though of this idea to create a dedicated forum for hosting, sort of like WebHostingTalk. There's nothing else to the story, no conspiracy and no favoritism.

AndrewB,

i have not expressed any resentment. what i have expressed is the fact that this is an advert. viewed by more than myself as being such. there is no discussion involved. other than offering the service for $1.00.

dont like modmysite, have no qualms in reality, other than he posts on this forum, and even when it is clearly in violation of the stated rules, it seems that the rules are thrown out the window, and all is good with whatever he posts. that is the problem i have.

you are right, the link was not supposed to be there. neither is the advertisement of services. but you consider this acceptable, then all is well.

im out!

I would normally consider it as unacceptable, same as the Moderator did, but now I suggest a dedicated place where such things would be acceptable, and thus, moderators would have place to move hosting talk to and those willing to read about hosting would come and read. Gradually, we would tune Rules to make sure this forum runs smoothly.

Wow. I did not notice the new forum name when I originally posted.

Yes, it is a blatant ad ...

Yes, it does help others see the light about some of the pitfalls of shared hosting....

I think this particular forum is a good idea if it gets the guys like ModMySite talking about their server setups even though he is pushing his deal. The trick is going to be to make sure each post has content of merit and not just an outright ad.

I vote yes, give it a try.

I just want to add one more thing as a total outsider. I have very high opinions of Andrew, DosDawg and Modmysite. Dosdawgs multiple postings in the forums are incredibly helpful. And Andrew recently gave me an incredible piece of help. So having said all that; I've read multiple people discussing their slow sites and blaming it on Dolphin and a programmer on here, who shall remain nameless, tried to convince me otherwise but the problem was not in the software it was in the hosting and modmysite new it right away and migrated my site, perfectly, to a new server and so many problems I had before, "pixalated photos, slow loading, etc." evaporated because I was configured properly on new, bigger, faster server. And get this. it was the same price as my current server. So what I learned, loudly and clearly, is that the server is INCREDIBLY important and well worth paying for and if one has speed problems they should look at the hosting first!

PS my server is 284, i get discounts every month for 25-30% off so its about 200 or 220

I don't have Litespeed but I'd like it. My site is fast though.

from DosDawg

thank you for your kind words. and again, this is not a consideration whether one is lacking knowledge. the debate was instantiated from a violation of rules whereas this post, in its presentation, is an advert for services.

i am sure there was good intention on here, but at the same time, if this was to truly contribute to the community at large, this could have been presented to Andrew Boon, and inquired if he would post this inquiry to the community, without naming names of whom it would be that would provide the service.

i have no aggression towards this philanthropic deed. as a matter of fact, this could provide us all very relative load data, on both the server configuration as well as any modules or third party software that is loaded or what hardware is used for load balancing or routing.

would also like to see some reports of streaming, it has been mentioned that RMS creates no load, true it does not have much bearing on a server, but if it is being used by say 10k members, what would that do?

DosDawg,

Sincerely, you are an incredible resource of information. Keep posting. I've never replied before but I've read countless posts of yours and they were incredibly helpful and insightful. Members like me (who know just enough to to get in to trouble) are very lucky to have you. You've solved many problems and helped me avoid others. You were the first to tell me to get off plesk and on to a cpanel and it was the first thing modmysite said too and now, thanks to both of you, I'm on a c-panel.

Ronnie

The initial post was, and remains,  just a thought experiment.

In regards to the business model comments...

Yes, we have tried the "free web hosting" thing several times before over the years - but we found that free web hosting was generally a bad experience all around.  Users felt entitled to something they were not paying for, and we were not committed to something that was time consuming (primarily providing support) without compensation.  This resulted in everyone being less than fully satisfied.

But maybe, just maybe, something in the middle could work and provide some benefit?

Lets look at our free RMS hosting as an example...

We learned in a couple previous attempts at it that providing free RMS hosting would work only if we could automate it., and if support was community based.

So, we automated the sign up process.  This took some coding time, but was not very difficult.

And we don't offer any direct support for the free RMS hosting.  We refer people to the forums.

We have not  sent any of the RMS users a promotional email or any other communication asking for money or other compensation.

Overall, I think it has been a positive experience, and I hope it helped a lot of people somehow.

Back to Web Hosting...

Web Hosting is a bit different... as it has much higher server demands... and much higher support demands.

Yes, the sign up process can be easily automated, but the loads users generate is not as controllable, and you can't just refer someone to a forum for hosting support.  Plus there is accounting to do, server maintenance, deal with spammers, and other essential functions.

So due to the server requirements, and the support requirements - and having tried free hosting before over the years without success, it seems impossible the hosting could be 100% free.

But there is perhaps a middle of the road?

Some options include:

a) the one I originally posted... the "pay later" suggestion, which is more or less a standard method, with centralized support, but with a delayed payment schedule.  It does however, allow users to try Dolphin for a month, without any monetary risk.

b) or if the hosting support was decentralized (with at least a portion of it community based), this would reduce costs.  Would this work?  Would the skill level exist in the community to provide support, or for a user to apply the suggestions given by the community?  What security issues would arise?

c) something else or in-between?

-Smoge

sounds good, keep us posted with how this works out for you. would like to see the load a few hundred can put on a machine with that XML.php file

yeah that never got answered either.

And to everyone... sorry the thread caused so much trouble... it really was only in response to reading many people complaining about their hosting....and it just seemed like a natural extension to our free RMS hosting to suggest some option.

Moderator's - If you want to delete it, please do.

If it turns into a FLAME WAR (or maybe it already has) , it is worthless anyways.

It is only a worthwhile thread if there is some (hopefully) constructive comments - exploring the possibilities, or impossibilities, of the topic.

Thanks.

I will chime in again, this time regarding the topic.. I have always used Shared Hosting plans to run my Dolphin sites since the beginning (3 years ago). I have absolutely no problems with it at all. I personally do not see the need in spending high dollars just to say you have a dedicated server or VPS, when in reality it is not required.

I will say that the company you choose your Shared Hosting with needs to be able to handle Dolphin, since we all know what kind of beast this software is. It seems to me that you are asking opinions on "how much" you should charge for offering Shared Hosting plans. Most everyone would love to pay as little as possible for Shared Hosting, but the real question is can YOU (as the company) provide the customers the support and performance they need?

Lets just say that you have 1 dedicated sever that you start a Shared Hosting plan for Dolphin on. This particular server costs you $150.00 per month (just making up numbers for example). You get 10 customers to sign up for your hosting at $5.00 per month / unlimited access. Those 10 customers have 200+ members on their site. 8 of those customers start complaining about how "sluggish/slow" their site is. It would be your responsibility to resolve these issues to maintain your customers AND you still have to come out of pocket $100.00 a month to cover the server.

I personally pay a much larger than normal price per month for Shared Hosting (not one of those el cheapos fly-by-night hosts), however I get the performance AND the support I need to make my site run as smoothly as possible. I think exactly the same as everyone else here.. You get what you pay for! If you want to only pay $5 a month for hosting, then expect $5 worth of support and performance in return. Dont gripe when you start having problems.

I don't think this is going to be as "easy" as the picture you are painting in your posts. Maybe you own your servers, I dont know, but starting a "new" hosting company is not going to be an easy task. I personally think that in the end, 1 of 2 things would happen.. You would go broke real fast OR you would end up on the same list as the other "you get what you pay for" hosters that everyone complains about here. But hey, stranger things have happened.

Zarcon - thanks for the response.

We already do a lot of hosting... all together, our combined hosting bill runs about 12K a month.

We have a fair amount of excess resources.  This is why we run the free RMS.  We don't even notice it on our network.  It has no impact on the overall picture or costs.  One of the reason for these excess resources is we can build a 8 core server with 12GB of RAM, for only $50 more than a 2 core server with 4GB of RAM. It makes no sense for us to build lower power servers, and with this, we end up with excess resources.

In regards to this hosting topic, the same, to some extent, applies.  It would run on excess resources. So the out of pocket expenses for hardware is minimal.

The costs are:
a) configuration and setup (one time)
b) some software like perhaps litespeed or whmcs (which have monthy fees)
c) maintenance of the environment, updates, etc.
d) support, which is time consuming and has high staff load.

It seems that the billing model is actually not that important (pay now, pay later, whatever), but the support method / level, is the greatest consideration.

In my last post, I made a list that bundled the billing model, and support together.  Let's just take billing model out of the picture and focus on providing support.

So let me change it into:

1) The standard method, of support being bundled into hosting.
2) Community based support, either full or partial.
3) Some Other method.

Allow me to make a suggestion for #3.... which is a method used at Softlayer.

They have Standard Support Tickets, which cover a pretty broad, but somewhat defined, list of items.  These tickets are free.
They also have what they call Administration Tickets, which are available for items outside the range of the free Standard Support Tickets, which require a fee.  At Softlayer, this fee is a low $3 per ticket!  Why they set it so low is surprising, but there must be some reason for that price point and the existence of that ticket type.

I should also mention... on the shared hosting dolphin sites we host now on our servers, I receive almost no support requests from these sites related to server issues.  Most of these people, I don't speak to for months. So I need to also ask, on a properly configured server, will there be much support requests anyways?  It seems not, but our shared hosting customers are long time, and rather stable minded and "sane" people. ;)

So - in closing.... if the hardware costs are minimal, but the support costs and quality are the biggest concern, what is the best way to mitigate that?  Is it possible?

-Smoge

That would be a good question for Andrew to answer, being that at one time, they were offering Free Media Server, and cut it off. has it been considered as to why they would cut off the free services they were offering.

"Sign Up on January 1st with a $1 sign up fee.  The $1 fee is refunded to you."

Perhaps should clarify this... the $1 sign-up fee was for verification for account setup, to allow for the free or trial period.

I am not saying that later into the hosting, it would be free, or $1, or even some other price.

This confused people into thinking the hosting would be free or $1 - thus the flames about budget hosting or "you pay for what you get".

My bad perhaps, if it was interpreted this way.

-Smoge