Last updated on September 4th, 2014 at 08:40 am
The term overselling is synonymous with web hosting – almost every host promises you the earth, moon and stars – and then expects you to not want to use them.
So – in web hosting – almost all hosts promise “unlimited disk space” – or “unlimited transfer” – the reality is that there will either be some fine print, or exclusions, which website owners who try to use large amounts of resources fall foul to.
Over time, servers with “unlimited” resources tend to actually hit their limits – which exist in the world that you and I live in.
Changes in ownership of websites can often lead to newer technologies being applied to servers – an example of that when EIG bought HostGator (among others) – they began throttling resources (in order to increase account density – ie, to put more clients on the same servers) – this meant that customers with sites which were using large amounts of CPU, RAM or Disk began to notice their sites going slow – or serving “over limit” notices.
In an industry where customers expect and demand “unlimited” – it is our belief that the word should be stricken from the marketing lexicon of our industry – there is no such thing as “unlimited” – and trying to sell to customers on that basis, is DECEPTION. Of course, we have never offered “unlimited” anything – in fact, we pride ourselves on our plans being “right-sized” for our customer’s needs. Everyone gets to pay a reasonable price, for the resources they need.
This isn’t so much an economies of scale issue – it’s an honesty matter for us – we don’t expect to buy unlimited anything and we won’t sell that way. In our minds – UNLIMITED – must die.
But will it?
Who knows – the public thinks that there is unlimited potential for the government to print money – and that simply isn’t the truth – economists and those who study history will point to events such as the Weimar republic and the resulting hyperinflation – as the end result… in server terms – it’s failure to supply web pages… which might be fine for your hobby site, but for your business, that’s just ridiculous!