WebHostingTalk Worst of the Hosting Industry

[drmike]

WHT & associated parties do create content. Here is a short list of places that they do create content on:

• http://thewhir.com/
  
• http://www.webhostingtalk.com/blog/
• SoftWareRevue's Email List

Keeping users engaged in a forum is not as simple as setting it and forgetting it. There is a lot of work behind the scenes that goes on.

Well the new owner Penton is way more about content.   Go to their site and see the emphasis on content and specifically optimizing content.   The place is a content farming operation with tons of analytical folks at desks crunching numbers.   When Penton finally addresses WHT assets, I have nagging suspicion that lots of changes are going to happen.

 

[host4go]

WHT & associated parties do create content. Here is a short list of places that they do create content on:

• http://thewhir.com/
  
• http://www.webhostingtalk.com/blog/
• SoftWareRevue's Email List

Keeping users engaged in a forum is not as simple as setting it and forgetting it. There is a lot of work behind the scenes that goes on.

Those are not directed at the "hosting customers". Thus not attracting the kind of user WHT customers (Premium and Corporate account owners) are looking for.

WHT forum, needs content for the forum,. ya know, the kind of content that will make the average joe go into their forum in hordes. Not a trend that I am seeing going on there.

EDIT - What work is WHT doing that I am missing? please dont make me dig for the topic I mentioned where WHT moderators told a WHT member to create content himself and not expect WHT to do it.

Just so you know where I am comming from, Nowadays I couldn't care less about WHT. Starting this year I mostly use it for promoting servives. While before I was an active member, contributing member to the "community".

So what put me off? simple really. The moderators.

I had a few incidents. The 2 most recent being.

- Some poor lad had issue with Site5, Site5 CEO took the moral hight ground and I called him out. At the end, he was telling me that the meaning of the word "unlimited" was due to a phylosophical discussion, just after he admited that the ratio of angry customers from discovering the truth Vs customers that would never discover the true (because the reality is that most websites are fairly small and unkown) encouraged Site5 to keep the shenanigans going.

What happened? Moderators deleted my posts and his (selected post by the way) and warned me for going offtopic. (the topic was: A customer of Site5 was complaining about finding out that their "unlimited" was actually really really limited).

- Another incided was a guy having some sort of DNS issues, several WHT members tried to explain to him what to do about it, It was realy one of those things take take you 2 minutes to do but 10m to explain, so after seeing that this guy was not getting the explanations at all, I voluteered to fix the issue for him. FOR FREE.

I got a warning because I was offering a service.

The last incided was the final drop, I decided there and then that WHT was not a community, but yeah, posting an add once in a while takes only a couple minutes.

 

[host4go]

A business has the legal and moral obligation to protect consumers.  Even one who claims to be a neutral publisher, non caring conduit or mall landlord. Those who don't eventually get federal government attention and beaten royally for running a fraud dumping ground.

As-is, what WHT mainly is = a non stop toilet roll of OFFERs.  These offers, mainly for hosting, are littered with companies who aren't serious, aren't going to good by customers, etc.  It's made worse by the super low barrier of entry which has guys spinning up shell companies to make offers on there for less than $100 plus a cup of time to populate their account for offer posting privileges.

Guys shell co all over WHT all day long.  I see guys with many brands and unrelated otherwise.  I see foreign brands ala reseller nested idiot claiming to be USA this and that but the formatting of the address is all messed up and total clues to me about it being shade tree operation.

All of this drives up the need for WHT to be murderously harsh about multiple accounts and other matters to filter the gene pool a bit to cut down on level of stupid.

Some guys have determined that the whole paid account is a surefire way to dupe customers into trust scenario.  It obviously works for the membership side and even that was recently scammed by a bunch of hosts with stolen account upgrades.  Paid accounts should meet some criteria.  If it is hard for a just started shop to meet the level of the bar, then oh damn well.  Sure big USA mega hosts will pass whatever test with flying colors as they are: 1. incorporated  2. have actual phone number  3. are credit worthy (usually)  4. have employees   5. have legitimate office space  6. probably registered with the BBB, etc.   

Why should there be a barrier to new hosts?  Because most businesses fail within the first year and these business are very often these days about unsustainable pricing to grab marketshare, a practice that just doesn't tend to pan out resulting in mass failures.

WHT knows they should be doing better on account vetting. Corporate almost certainly doesn't want the liability matter either side.

As is, they should just do away with memberships, and make every offer a fixed fee to post.  $5-20 per offer.   Plus define the offers and must include details better.  Cause big picture, that's all the memberships are about for most guys.  Crafting fake benefits is pretty tired and obvious.

I mostly agree with you.

When on my previous post I said that we should not expect more from them, is not because I think they shouldn't do more, it´s because I realize that they are only focused in the $, thus there's no point in expecting more.

The only thing I disagree with you is that I dont think their problem is the liability issues, they already have that when they choose to name the account "Corporate Member". The same way the TOS saves their but now, iwould still save them with a vet process in place.

They just don't care, they want it to be dead simple for people to sign up for paid accounts and that's all there is to it.

 

[drmike]

The only thing I disagree with you is that I dont think their problem is the liability issues, they already have that when they choose to name the account "Corporate Member". The same way the TOS saves their but now, iwould still save them with a vet process in place.

They just don't care, they want it to be dead simple for people to sign up for paid accounts and that's all there is to it.

I actually do agree with you on this point also.  Liability was a long time ago and avoiding suits due to mechanics and processes is pretty impressive based on the sheer volume of misdoings on WHT all these years.

Corporate Member is a terrible title to cast upon paid account holders.  Corporate like all words has a definition and especially in law and commerce.  Corporate wasn't chosen as name for any other reason than to infer trustworthiness.  Not that a sole proprietor can't be trustworthy, it's just less likely to for such to be and sole proprietors are low / no overhead or compliance in many jurisdictions. 

As per Black's Law:


What is CORPORATION?

An artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state or nation, composed, in some rare instances, of a single person and his successors, being the incumbents of a particular oltice, but ordinarily consisting of an association of numerous individuals, who subsist as a body politic under a special denomination, which is regarded In law as having a personality and existence distinct from that of its several members, and which is, by the same authority, vested with the capacity of continuous succession, irrespective of changes in its membership, either in perpetuity or for a limited term of years, and of acting as a unit or single individual in matters relating to the common purpose of the association, within the scope of the powers and authorities conferred upon such bodies by law. See Case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Coke. 32; Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 636, 657. 4 L. Ed. 629; U. S. v. Trinidad Coal Co., 137 U. S. 160, 11 Sup. Ct. 57. 34 L. Ed. 640; Andrews Bros. Co. v. Youngstown Coke Co., 86 Fed. 585, 30 C. C. A. 293; Porter v. Railroad Co., 76 111. 573; State v. Payne, 129 Mo. 468, 31 S. W. 797. 33 L. R. A. 576; Farmers' L. & T. Co. v. New York, 7 Hill (N. Y.) 2S3; State BL.LAW DICT.(2D ED.)

What that says is government issues the corporate moniker, at cost with the intent of at least several intended years of existence per pay cycle.  Such involves reporting, stock issuance perhaps and other account compliance.

In fact, WHT is giving Corporate memberships to "companies" who are in fact not even corporations. Legal fiction and some kingmaker of sorts bestowing fiction upon uncrowned heads.

It would suffice and be more accurate to have titles there like Paid Member and Paid (Even More) Member, or more sensibly Paid and Premium.

Nothing wrong with sole proprietorship though in general terms.   In hosting though where so much is liability and dealing with folks data and ones own legitimacy, it's umm odd.   I doubt you will find a datacenter operating as a sole proprietorship.  Anyone invested for the long haul tries to avoid the personal wealth liability risk that sole proprietorship infers.  Instead they use the legal fiction of a corporation or LLC (or equivalents elsewhere) to isolate risk from personal fortunes under concept of Limited Liability.

Yes, pet peeve of mine where businesses arbitrarily toss words around as-if they have no definitions.  Something like this gets into a Court over word abuse like this and the abuser would be royally whipped for it and quite embarrassed.

 

[Dillybob]

I'd very much be happier with Mike running WHT than Penton. Probably could do it himself and still rake in more revenue while sustaining a ethical, safe hosting environment for all.

 

[HN-Matt]

All of this drives up the need for WHT to be murderously harsh about multiple accounts and other matters to filter the gene pool a bit to cut down on level of stupid.

If you wanna put it in those terms, it becomes incredibly easy for anyone to discern how the act of charging a lot of money for flashy, hideous, deceptive "CORPORATE" badges doesn't quite amount to filtering out or cutting down on stupid behaviours ('genetically speaking' lol) to say the least. Quite the opposite...

 

[drmike]

- Some poor lad had issue with Site5, Site5 CEO took the moral hight ground and I called him out. At the end, he was telling me that the meaning of the word "unlimited" was due to a phylosophical discussion, just after he admited that the ratio of angry customers from discovering the truth Vs customers that would never discover the true (because the reality is that most websites are fairly small and unkown) encouraged Site5 to keep the shenanigans going.

Ahh customers would be mortified by nested doll style companies hanging like voting chads off of upstream reseller account.

Things like "company" buys a reseller hosting plan with 50GB of storage but then is running ads all over for shared hosting themselves with allocations that up to 10x that and selling to one customer....

As one guy recently asked me to guess how much his shared customers consumed even though he sold an f-ton more than his resources underlying and proudly told me 15GB total...

I have issues with such BS.  Massive issues.  Someone sells say a 500GB plan on storage, but doesn't even have such on their upstream account.  Yeah that's some fraud right there.

As a customer I buy at times bigger plans to have actual headroom.  More resources than I need.  So when I go to use it even heavily I should be at 1/4 to 1/2 of allocation.  Some shop chew my account for use I'll probably go ape crazy.  Oversell fine, but overselling what you don't even have = fraud.

Unlimited = FRAUD.  No ifs about it.   Getting near this concept them it's UNMETERED and even that has maximums and shops ought to be stating them.

I'd very much be happier with Mike running WHT than Penton. Probably could do it himself and still rake in more revenue while sustaining a ethical, safe hosting environment for all.

I'll apply to become a moderator or liason.. inspired by Dillybob and a few others.

If you wanna put it in those terms, it becomes incredibly easy for anyone to discern how the act of charging a lot of money for flashy, hideous, deceptive "CORPORATE" badges doesn't quite amount to filtering out or cutting down on stupid behaviours ('genetically speaking' lol) to say the least. Quite the opposite...

I agree with this.  My point is as the perception of it being a viable large market exists, the moderation needs to have attitude and regulate folks more than otherwise.   Corporate bought status BS isn't helping their cause in any way other than corporate financials. If they changed the names and adjusted it to a matter-of-fact membership with benefits otherwise, it might fly and create less friction and ill will.

Easy to dismiss me and others on the WHT drum loud team as old curmudgeons, but such would be missing the nose on their corporate face.  Ideally Penton makes adjustments I'd expect so the site redefines itself and regains trust in the market.   Hostility that happens I am less caring about providers getting it, but customers who rarely speak up and get rough treatment is very disappointing.

 

[Onra Host]

@drmike

Please stay out of my company. None of my comments were directed at you...nor even on this site. As for you and your stupid ass opinions, lets clear this up...

1. I was a corporate/premium member for the last 3 years. It just expired and I have yet to renew it, I'll have it done shortly just to shut you up. 

2. Don't EVER compare me to GVH. You a sad person to be trolling like this. NEVER comment, mention or even think about the name 'Onra Host' ever again. You are not a client, and have never been a client. You have no right what so ever to ever say anything negative about my company and what "you think my offers are like". We've been in business for three years and turning a nice profit, which is the least I can say for most of these guys. More importantly we have gave EVERYTHING offered with our plans for the last 3 years and have some big improvements/more freebies coming in the upcoming months. When they come out I'll be sure to tag you in it, that way you can say can get your GVH high. 

I don't even know why I'm explaining myself to you..in fact if I remember correctly you were the one up GHV/Johhny ass defending him, or faciclting a sale, or always having news about him, or some shit..idk. 

3. "20 x $4 a month for Xen 512MB = $80 income on a server.  Yeah that's sustainable even if you own your own equipment... not.".... A tleast use common sense here, but lets see:

A. This is a PROMO. Meaning we don't make to much off of it. If you look at our regular VPS plans you would be happy to know we charge a lot more, and make our money quite well on non-promos  

B. Your math is flawed. Vm's are placed on free servers, so our profit margin is way higher then your measly figure. Again you know nothing about our company, so I have no clue how your even commenting. 

C. A box of 20 users isn't going to be $4 plans. It would be at minimum $7. So lets say $6.25 after IP and PP fees (ballpark, I'm not 100% sure) .. 20 x 6.25 = $125. 125 - $30 or so per rack plus bandwidth = $95 x 12 months = $1140/year. So if I was putting ONLY promo VM's, I would still pretty much be able to profit a nice amount and pay the server off a little year later. Though not the case either way, this just goes to show you it is profitable. 

D. Are you a IDIOT??????? Like really are you an idiot? You got companies giving away $35/month  32GB E3's, but your going to turn around and question me about sustainable pricing with "$80/month". Yeah GTFO. 

 

[HN-Matt]

do u even lift @Onra Host

 

[Onra Host]

do u even lift @Onra Host

I do actually haha.

In all honesty I rarely post, but when I do it's usually towards someone using opinionated views as "facts". Despite having no real knowledge of a item or situation, they still feel the need to comment on it for some asinine reasoning. It just really grinds my gears... though this time it was an attack against me and my company by DrMike for something I said on another forum to somebody else. I don't take people talking about me, Onra, or any of my employees very lightly, especially when we take into account his entire post was speculation and not one actual truth. 

 

[Hxxx]

@drmike

Please stay out of my company. None of my comments were directed at you...nor even on this site. As for you and your stupid ass opinions, lets clear this up...

1. I was a corporate/premium member for the last 3 years. It just expired and I have yet to renew it, I'll have it done shortly just to shut you up. 

2. Don't EVER compare me to GVH. You a sad person to be trolling like this. NEVER comment, mention or even think about the name 'Onra Host' ever again. You are not a client, and have never been a client. You have no right what so ever to ever say anything negative about my company and what "you think my offers are like". We've been in business for three years and turning a nice profit, which is the least I can say for most of these guys. More importantly we have gave EVERYTHING offered with our plans for the last 3 years and have some big improvements/more freebies coming in the upcoming months. When they come out I'll be sure to tag you in it, that way you can say can get your GVH high. 

I don't even know why I'm explaining myself to you..in fact if I remember correctly you were the one up GHV/Johhny ass defending him, or faciclting a sale, or always having news about him, or some shit..idk. 

3. "20 x $4 a month for Xen 512MB = $80 income on a server.  Yeah that's sustainable even if you own your own equipment... not.".... A tleast use common sense here, but lets see:

A. This is a PROMO. Meaning we don't make to much off of it. If you look at our regular VPS plans you would be happy to know we charge a lot more, and make our money quite well on non-promos

B. Your math is flawed. Vm's are placed on free servers, so our profit margin is way higher then your measly figure. Again you know nothing about our company, so I have no clue how your even commenting. 

C. A box of 20 users isn't going to be $4 plans. It would be at minimum $7. So lets say $6.25 after IP and PP fees (ballpark, I'm not 100% sure) .. 20 x 6.25 = $125. 125 - $30 or so per rack plus bandwidth = $95 x 12 months = $1140/year. So if I was putting ONLY promo VM's, I would still pretty much be able to profit a nice amount and pay the server off a little year later. Though not the case either way, this just goes to show you it is profitable. 

D. Are you a IDIOT??????? Like really are you an idiot? You got companies giving away $35/month  32GB E3's, but your going to turn around and question me about sustainable pricing with "$80/month". Yeah GTFO. 

Is good that you replied, but now you have given drmike more drama material.

 

[Dillybob]

@drmike

 sniped unprofessional ranting / babble

C. A box of 20 users isn't going to be $4 plans. It would be at minimum $7. So lets say $6.25 after IP and PP fees (ballpark, I'm not 100% sure) .. 20 x 6.25 = $125. 125 - $30 or so per rack plus bandwidth = $95 x 12 months = $1140/year. So if I was putting ONLY promo VM's, I would still pretty much be able to profit a nice amount and pay the server off a little year later. Though not the case either way, this just goes to show you it is profitable. 

sniped unprofessional ranting / babble

Damn! A box full of 20 paying customers at an estimate of $1140 / year. Well, you're only around 300 or so dollars away of paying off that corporate fee! That ROI must feel great!! You're still forgetting about the sticky prices of $995 + other topic title features, etc a week!. But wait, your dedicated server customers help pay that off right?   

El oh El.

 

[drmike]

@drmike

Please stay out of my company. None of my comments were directed at you...nor even on this site. As for you and your stupid ass opinions, lets clear this up...

Bravo chap, bravo.  Glad to see you commenting.

1. Corporate membership,  did yours expire or was your account one of those "freebies"?  Save your money and bank it to subsidize those low end plans you just sold and that OnApp which loves to cost shops money.

2. I think your offers are flawed like many folks making offers.   When you pass the never oversold stuff and all that, meh.   I can get an 8 year old to do math, and they could tell you it doesn't add up like many shops.  If pack 20 containers something is wrong.  What are these?  Avoton nodes?  Definitely seems like a 16GB of RAM box.

3. "A. This is a PROMO. Meaning we don't make to much off of it."

I believe that's indeed true.  Nothing prevents whole nodes full of $4 LEB plans other you either limiting the inventory or expiring the coupon on LEB and you've done neither so it should be assumed that you have nodes full of $4 accounts.  That market buys cheap if they buy.   Even if you spread them around like peanut butter you still have nodes full of $4 plans, that is unless the promo just didn't move inventory.  $80 nodes sink ships. Even your rosey $95 income per server makes me wonder what the hell these nodes are made out of....

DD.  You got companies giving away $35/month  32GB E3's, but your going to turn around and question me about sustainable pricing with "$80/month". Yeah GTFO. 

Where are you seeing $35/month 32GB E3's?????? Cause I'll buy them. Probably about the best you are going to get is an 8GB E3 and older, weaker CPU with lots of run time on it.  You should know all about them, as you sell in Buffalo and on CC's network.

I think you are wrongly referring to my little pals bargain bins.  8GB E3's and it squashed the market and caused a lot of annoyance to providers. $35  is doable on that spec with a single small drive as a market ruin thing.  It's arguably $0-5 profit.  Depends on the financing.  But one has to be an idiot to sell stuff so low.

Dedis are fixed costs.  Already paid for, racked, often on, etc.  Facilities want such generating money even if lean.  If not covering costs then draining income from other profit centers to cover it.  Promos make sense for baremetal where companies are funded by monopoly money.

That said, your servers for that promo offer just make no sense.  I am unaware of any Quadranet server with 4 drives and decent processors that is going to fit in $95/mo income scenario.  Maybe you colo gear, you must.  At 50% cost, looking at $45 we'll say rounded down of profit, for a whole server. Full rack is 32A usable... so you can fit meh 28 servers, maybe 30....  If you populated that rack with 30 of these servers packed up (which hey moving 600 containers is nothing at said price and on said site)  you'd have $45 x 30 = $1400~ income at most. (rack @ $800/mo and $600 into other costs).  $1400 on a full rack and still have to pay labor. I guess.

But I know you aren't selling 600 containers and your other real business funnels the cash to subsidize playing in the low end sandbox.  Hope the paying customers like the noisy neighbors and the network snafus from lowenders. Be sure to drop money for a real router.  That's going to sting.

My question then is why do this promo baiting at all?  Why do little self admitted profit to yank customers in the door who have no loyalty  or retention?  It's throwing good money in  a hole in the ground.  It devalues your brand and you are supposedly into this 4 years.

Just saying $7 plans x maximum of 20 = $140 dollars per node pre every fee.  Not being a smart ass, but, that's not a sustainable income number and remember I told you that down the road.  Chalking it up to promotional thing, sure, I buy that. But look at what you did:

512MB Xen face price on your site = $12/mo, 1GB Xen face price = $24/mo... Sure those are SSD and have less disk than my watch does, but at least the numbers are alright.

Sale = 512MB Xen @ $4/mo plus 100GB of HDD    1GB Xen promo = $7/mo plus 175GB HDD

So the 512 = 66% price reduction and the 1GB = 70% price reduction.  No opinion.  

Node income on 512MB @ face $12 x 20 = $240 income or 3x more.

Is $12 too much for a 512MB plan? For companies with little reputation, yes.   Is $4 discount too low? By a bit. 

Now I am off to look at these shared plans and stickies.

PS: Fix your website:

http://onrahost.com/datacenters

http://onrahost.com/faq.html

http://blog.onrahost.com/ (nice blog I enjoyed it)

http://onrahost.com/sitemap.html

http://www.onrahost.com/fourms.onrahost.com 

http://forums.onrahost.com (nice I enjoyed the forums too)

http://www.onrahost.com/backupstorage.html

https://demos.onrahost.com/

 

[Dillybob]

PS: Fix your website:
http://onrahost.com/datacenters

http://onrahost.com/faq.html

http://blog.onrahost.com/ (nice blog I enjoyed it)

http://onrahost.com/sitemap.html

http://www.onrahost.com/fourms.onrahost.com

http://forums.onrahost.com (nice I enjoyed the forums too)

http://www.onrahost.com/backupstorage.html

https://demos.onrahost.com/

You forgot their facebook page...

I click here:





This guy doesn't even know how to manage a facebook account or link HTML correctly.

Btw, 'Your future' customers do see this and it plays a role in whether or not they will buy your service. But, I thought you would know that since your slogan is 'The future of hosting'. Obviously not.

You don't care about customer's or user experience, you just care about the plans and the money.

 

[HBAndrei]

Come on guys, there's no need to make all of this personal with the name calling and raging all around, everyone has their own opinions... which should be expressed politely... just my 2 cents.

 

[drmike]

Not like this company hasn't prior failed at math and dipped on customers leaving them without their services and data....  G7 Hosting.

Other problem I have is this registration number found only on LEB offer of G12000004524...

[SIZE=14.3999996185303px]That appears to be a Fictitious name filing only.  Anyone probably can apply to fictionalize anything. Does not infer corporate status or mean not a sole proprietor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.3999996185303px]As I look I get more annoyed as prior failing of prior company was cleaned up on WHT by saying Michael wasn't involved in this new Onra entity as the head guy, but incorporation records seem to reflect his details on incorporation all the way back to 2009. See: [/SIZE]http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=RegisteredAgentName&directionType=ForwardList&searchNameOrder=CEPARANOMICHAEL%20L090000152330&aggregateId=flal-l09000015233-10ee3f3e-4a22-4818-941d-02eb65fe157e&searchTerm=CEPARANO&listNameOrder=CEPARANOMARYANN%20P930000733780

Which has a real interesting bastardization of this company name.  If my corporation bore such even from a typo I'd be getting that corrected real fast. Address and name match and all.. so...

Offer on LEB = 20 containers maximum, but OnraHost in comments later:


 "Nevertheless the boxes are always capped at 20 -25 maximum VPS  (depending on the specific plans)"
Deviating from the advertised guarantee of 20. Just saying, what's next?  50 in some instances (like when underpricing to LEB market)?

 

[Vega]

I am seeing some of the same arrogance/disrespect of providers and what not on VPsboard that I was hoping not to find here like on WHT...more so, since it appears to be far more liberal here with personal attacks and what not.

Sigh. On the one hand, it is entertaining but for customers like myself the juvenile/immature high school behavior doesn't do much when we are(like myself) looking for good communities to get advice/help with hosting from when you see such cattiness.

 

[drmike]

Shame @Vega because absent people blowing the whistle, buyers like you and me end up buying into shops with bad prior same failings.   Shops that like I feel in this instance are repeating the past with offers that are slowly changing in fact terms as they go.

Probably would help the market to know about a lot of other companies and their massive prior royal failures. 

Buyer always beware.

 

[Dillybob]

I am seeing some of the same arrogance/disrespect of providers and what not on VPsboard that I was hoping not to find here like on WHT...more so, since it appears to be far more liberal here with personal attacks and what not.


Sigh. On the one hand, it is entertaining but for customers like myself the juvenile/immature high school behavior doesn't do much when we are(like myself) looking for good communities to get advice/help with hosting from when you see such cattiness.

I posted several questions here and have received great help. This place is a nice community. Don't let the immaturity fool you

Just a few odd ducks like myself and others I disagree with.

 

[MartinD]

Keep this on topic please people.