Editorial: Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts?

[kpmedia]

Latest editorials:
- Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts? - Part 1: False Advertising and Kiddie Hosts
- Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts? - Part 2: Outsource Tech Support and Fake Review Sites
- Why Are There So Many Bad Web Hosts? - Part 3: Worthless Upsells and False Competition

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[blud]

The image for this article is titled "The Worst Web Hosts Ever".

My question is, why is DreamHost in there? So far in the article, you talk about:

Reason #1 — False Promises + Lack of Oversight
Reason #2 — Easy Entry for the Unqualified

DreamHost doesn't suffer from reason #2.

And in terms of #1, yeah, they do say "unlimited" but then technically their ToS doesn't allow you to host 'file depots' basically. But I have never run into any issues with using 'more' than their 'unlimited', and I even know a guy who did use his as a file depot and never had a problem.

But also, I don't really find their ToS restrictions to be unfair. I mean obviously their low price isn't going to give you true unlimited stuff.

But I'm not posting this to defend them, I'm posting this because I use them and I want to know if you have real evidence of why I shouldn't. Cuz I don't want to use a lousy web host, but is there any truth to your claim?

Because as far as I can see, Dreamhost is way better than ALL those kiddie hosts you talked about so how can it qualify as "worst ever"...

What's wrong with dreamhost? (I literally want to know Thanks!

[kpmedia]

I always meant to get back to this, but seem to have overlooked it.

Dreamhost is a slow host. Period, end of story. They've not just "oversold" their servers ("overselling" = resource management), but overloaded them. They put way more people on a server than is sustainable. As such, it runs slow, and goes down quite a bit. The internet is full of similar complaints.

In fact, if you look on their blog, you'll see angry customers responding to quite a few of their posts. I remember an April Fool's post that was made a few years ago, because the customers were not amused. The general response was "GET BACK TO WORK!" That's really, really bad when a joke angers the customers!

They pay out $100 bounties to get new customers, and that's only possible when you cut corners. In Dreamhosts case, they obvious cut is to overload servers, instead of buying more (or charging more). When you squeeze every dime possible from a server, by overloading it, you can afford these cuckoo amount. The company wins, the affiliate wins ... but the customer gets the short end of the stick.

Like others, Dreamhosts has promised "unlimited" -- and then hidden the limits in the fine print. Granted, it's better than somebody like Godaddy or EIG, but it's still disingenuous. So I won't really zing them on the "unlimited" part. Slowness is what really does them in.

They're guilty of encouraging fake reviews, upsells, and false advertising.

That's why you'd want to avoid Dreamhost.

These may be good reads for you:

• Overselling vs. Overloading: What Is Overselling? (Part 1)
• Overselling vs. Overloading: What Is Overloading? (Part 2)

[coledavis]

I was disappointed to see the point about companies from undeveloped countries, suggesting that they were just in it to rip off westerners. Does it not occur to you that individuals in those countries may also want to do a good job and provide value for money? I'm a westerner, but have had plenty of dealings with people from elsewhere. Many, maybe even most, have been very upright individuals. And people can, peculiarly enough, get well and truly taken for a ride by westerners.

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coledavis

I was disappointed to see the point about companies from undeveloped countries, suggesting that they were just in it to rip off westerners. Does it not occur to you that individuals in those countries may also want to do a good job and provide value for money? I'm a westerner, but have had plenty of dealings with people from elsewhere. Many, maybe even most, have been very upright individuals. And people can, peculiarly enough, get well and truly taken for a ride by westerners.

Thanks for the comment.

However, the idea that "the world is full of good people" is utopian and unrealistic. Sadly it's not the case. I wish it was! But some places lack the same morals, laws, and ethics you find in more developed nations. That affects everything from religious tolerance to business (web hosting, etc).

Some countries are real shitholes. They're full of scammers (example: IRS tax scams in India that target U.S. citizens), spammers (example: email, web/comments, and forum spam from China), and even just simple liars. Many more are rude and unreasonable cheapskates.

Those people are looking to get rich on the ol' interwebs, by bilking those who live in successful countries like the USA and UK.

Take Ukraine, for example. It's one of the primary sources for spam on the internet, both via email and forums. But at the same time, Namecheap, WebhostingBuzz (USA) and Jolt (UK, formerly WHB as well) have their support centers located there. Those are excellent host, and those people are amazing at what they do. The country clearly has many upstanding earnest individuals! But they seem to be the minority. The prevailing online activity of that country is not good, and Ukraine is a bad netizen. In fact, much of their spam specifically targets the USA, and much of it is to not to just advertise something (that wasn't asked for), but to cause harm (malware).

This isn't to insist that any "western" countries are perfect. It's definitely NOT the case! But on a scale of shades of gray, most are more white than black.

The primary way to stay safe, in terms of procuring web hosting, is to NOT buy from countries that are populated by miscreants. As the saying goes, "it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". Well, don't have your website live there either!

[coledavis]

Ah, the inhabitant of a 'successful nation' saying that most others are skanks. The fact that you get IRS fraud calls from India - and I get car insurance frauds from there - does not mean that the majority of Indians are sitting at the phone calling us up (although sometimes it feels like it). As you have noted, Ukraine as a poor country has scammers but it also has reasonable professionals trying to get along. I hired a Ukrainian recently to do some HTML work for me, as art just isn't my thing - complete stranger, did the job, was very reasonable, but during the rather lengthy payment process was most concerned that he wasn't going to get ripped off by the intermediary hiring company, or perhaps me.

The USA, that successful country, breeds its own rip-off artists. They typically take advantage of their geographical distance and the relative strength and arrogance of their own government. "I want a refund", says the annoyed foreign consumer. "We have a policy of not refunding non-US citizens." (I.e. they don't feel the need to.) In fact an official of the US, who will remain anonymous, suggested to me that American firms would take advantage of their tax laws to fail to pay me properly for my services. And they rip their own people off, for which I just need two words: health insurance; in that respect, they are much worse than places like Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Avoiding these here foreigners is not really an heuristic for avoiding a rip-off. It's also very rude. Your point about not wanting to live there is a case in point. You couldn't - if you are like the average Brit or American, you won't have the language skills, or the sense of adventure or the ability to adapt (Americans are notorious for that last shortcoming, btw).

Returning to the point. The sort of thing I was expecting was what sort of promises are unlikely to be true, what sort of offers are unrealistic and - generally difficult to find on the internet - a list of hosts that have genuinely been recommended by several authentic users (from successful countries, if you like). This last idea, a genuine list, is a piece of research that really needs doing.

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coledavis

This last idea, a genuine list, is a piece of research that really needs doing.

One list that doesn't exist (yet) is a list of quality hosts, not based on payouts, organized by country of ownership. But here's where you immediately run into issue: many hosts hide, many lie, and many more are written in languages we don't know.

The third group is elusive, and clearly not targeting "western" countries. (FYI, "western" is a term that I find silly. North America, South America and Europe are as different as can be!) I find many good hosts in places like Japan, but they're owned and speak only Japanese -- a language I'm not at all fluent in. Only via Google Translate am I able to read quality reviews from others.

This article addressed the first two.

A large host like 1&1, for example, is German. That corporate culture trickles down to every country where 1&1 pretends to be. You need not look further than their threatening collections policies -- policies that are often in the wrong due to their own mistakes! No UK or USA company would ever do that, but a German one would.

Same for OVH (French) and Leaseweb (Dutch), though they don't hide who they are. Top-down commands come from there, not the satellite countries where they also have datacenters.

The worst offenders are hosts (and amateur "hosts") that hide (or attempt to hide) behind private whois. These sites are almost always run by kiddies or amateurs in foreign lands, many of which are severely lacking in business ethics or even laws to regulate business.

Whether we like it or not, geography still matters.

[coledavis]

These are interesting points, mainly about authenticity. I am inclined to agree that a lack of transparency will probably be accompanied by poor service, perhaps with lack of integrity being the underlying factor in common. Therefore, given the problems you've identified, wouldn't it be better to ignore detection ("I can't judge because this host could be a 'kiddie'/German/Eastern scammer") in favour of users' experience?

In a way, it's not really our business to expose a 'kiddie' if in fact he/she resells well. Although bad experiences are likely to come from their lack of interest or competence. Our interest, I would suggest, is basically did they host well or didn't they, using the usual criteria. Downtime. Administrative efficiency/support. Having the facilities they say they have.

The current listings on the internet would be good if they were genuine. What I would suggest is to approach known legitimate companies with websites (sorry, being obtuse here, der, they all have). Are you happy with your current one (downtime, support) etc? If moved from others, can you comment on them? Then you build up a listing based on that.

On the point of not understanding Japanese, etc. I would suggest that you don't pick a business you can't communicate with. That's not prejudice; that's a desire not to end up in a mess of your own making. Although that doesn't stop an ambitious review site from having Japanese/French/etc language pages as well as English, but with the research done by Japanese/French/etc researchers, or at least having the surveys translated by native speakers into the relevant languages.

Surely, given the terrible listing surveys masquerading as review sites, a real service, promoted on forums etc should be monetisable? (I am a researcher and data analyst - would work with someone who knows more about the techy and monetising side. But if you are inspired to get on and do it on your own - more power to your elbow, as they say in London - or said. If you want to contact me personally, my username has an org.)