It's a bit emblematic of how consumers view this industry, though.
They know that it deals with computers. They know that it's a bit too complex for them to do themselves. They know that there are lots of hosting companies out there...
...but they don't trust or outright mistrust most of us. And with all the fly-by-nights that there have been, plus the recent memory of the whole dot-com situation, it's not easy to blame them outright.
A lot of my first clients commented to me that, if they hadn't known me, they wouldn't have gotten web hosting from anyone. They were on the various freeservers, or, in one case, were prepared to trust Yahoo only because they were such a pervasively-known name (and this client in particular had to have a web presence). They're all very glad that they knew me.
It's very, very much a matter of who you know and how your customers recommend you to family, friends, and co-workers. That may ameliorate some if or as the industry is able to find a good way to police its own (because looking at the searing ignorance of the politicians in America and Canada, they won't be able to do it with their current knowledge levels. They couldn't find their sockets with tracert and a T-1. Heck, they approved CAN-SPAM, an utter limp noodle of a law.)
