Your View On 'Unlimited' Hosting?

[Gintonic]

Actually what I wanted to say is that customers should not play dumb also. They very well know that unlimited often means limited and that you should not abuse it.

If you remain within normal usage unlimited can be very good solution especially for a beginner website.

 

[Collabora]

But question for the guys who are selling unlimited, how are they going to manage it in 2-3 years when customers are using multiple Terabytes of space for dirt cheap price?

Same way that a host that sells limited plans manage it. It makes no difference whether a web site got onto my server with an unlimited plan or a 5 GB plan. Thus all of them combined will also present the same situation.

Make sense?

 

[bunnykins]

But question for the guys who are selling unlimited, how are they going to manage it in 2-3 years when customers are using multiple Terabytes of space for dirt cheap price?

I am not a seller but as a customer that uses a lot of space. When has happened with unlimited hosts that I have has it they usually ask me to upgrade or they will just disable only their back up for my site. For Terabytes I would say they would ask you to upgrade based on my experience.

 

[Collabora]

When has happened with unlimited hosts that I have has it they usually ask me to upgrade or they will just disable only their back up for my site. .

Websites can outgrow a shared hosting environment for many reasons; disk space is just one of those. Which plan are you on at powermonster?

 

[bunnykins]

A special plan. But basically I am getting the specs of the One Premium but paying the price of the One Lite. I have tried their One extreme before but I had issues with trying to figure out how to manage my own VPS. To add Management it was more money. I do not remember for sure how much extra it was.

With cloudweb which is owned by the same company I have the Stratus Premium plan.

 

[Collabora]

Looks like a great deal and you are in a good position.

I like the Server Resource Limits section in their AUP. Its along the lines of what I try to do. I might "borrow" some of it.

 

[bunnykins]

I do have a good plan. It was a special they were running several years ago. If I remember correctly it was back in 2009. Well looking at my welcome email it was back in June 2009. So ya I have had them a long time. I do like how if needed I can just add more space. How ever I don't do that because I could loss my special plan. So when I needed more space I opened my second account, which was with their cloud web department. The tech person I was talking to about space said it would be better to go with cloud web as those plans have the plans with more space. So that is what I did. SO part of my site is on powermonsters and the rest of it is on cloudweb.

 

[Collabora]

I'd like to see a discussion of unlimited as it's applied cross industry, for example to Sprint's unlimited bandwidth offering....For the record, I have accounts with two different web hosting providers that offer unlimited accounts, among others.

I find the trouble with cross-industry comparisons or analogies is the anti-unlimited critic will take the analogy or comparisons to areas that were not meant to apply and use the result to disprove a claim that was never made.

But here goes....

One of my favorite analogies is the rental car, mostly because it easily exposes the faulty reasoning of the anti-unlimited argument. The typical argument is a variation of: "there is no such thing as an infinitely large HD, thus there is no such thing as unlimited web space"

Their argument now becomes: One can rent a car with specified mileage limits (at least one could when I was young) or rent one with unlimited mileage. But unlimited mileage cannot exist because there is no such thing as an infinite gas tank, or infinite roads.

Of course, these critics would be considered lunatics in an auto rental forum. Check one out -- there are no threads bashing rental agencies offering unlimited mileage. Why? Because its obvious that in this context its the rental company determines the allowed mileage, not the gas tank or other hardware. Its obvious to everyone that the car will stop when it runs out of gas. No need to even consider that. Context is everything.

Its the same for web hosting. Its the provider that determines the allowed disk space, not the hard drive. Its obvious to everyone that the hard drive has a finite size and storage space will eventually run out.

Again, context is everything

What matters is who or what is doing the limiting. When it comes to nature and nature's laws, everything has limits: The car rental company that provides unlimited mileage is not a claim to a perpetual motion machine, it is the absence of the agency making a limit.

It is not an infinitely long day that provides unlimited talk time, it is the absence of the cell service provider's limit.

Similarly the existence of unlimited disk space quota does not require a computer store from the Twilight Zone, it just requires the artificial limits imposed by the admin to be lifted.

All the limits we speak about in these discussion are the artificial limits imposed by a person/provider/admin. The "unlimited" referred to in hosting is simply the absence of these limits, not the absence of limits imposed by nature.
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As I warned myself at the beginning, there will be those that will take analogies and bend them, twist them into something else. Analogies are meant as an explanation not a direct substitution. If someone posts that I am wrong because a gas tank is not a hard drive I won't be surprised. But it could reveal an intellectual shortcoming.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Their argument now becomes: One can rent a car with specified mileage limits (at least one could when I was young) or rent one with unlimited mileage. But unlimited mileage cannot exist because there is no such thing as an infinite gas tank, or infinite roads.

when you rent a car you will either get 100km or in the UK 100 mls or unlimited miles true.

but this means when you hire the care you can travel 100 miles before paying extra or you can travel around the globe 1000 times as long as you fill the fuel tank without any extra fire charges.

this is 1000% different to unlimited web hosting SPACE as this is like the fuel tank as a hard drive has a set limit of say 300GB like a fuel take has a limited capacity of 50 litres and that once this is full you have to empty it to fill it up again, but the limit still stays the same.

 

[Sidular]

this is 1000% different

Don't have a valid reply, but... where'd you get that statistic from?
Found the stat to be rather funny.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Don't have a valid reply, but... where'd you get that statistic from?
Found the stat to be rather funny.

it was just to say that both situations are totally different. Blue even gave the english dictionary legal definition of unlimited, but it seems that only 2 people on this whole forum that have stated they were leaving the forum (http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/general-discussion/33383-goodbye-hosting-discussion.html) basically because others dont see things their way dont seem to know how to read or use a dictionary

 

[Collabora]

I find the trouble with cross-industry comparisons or analogies is the anti-unlimited critic will take the analogy or comparisons to areas that were not meant to apply and use the result to disprove a claim that was never made.

But here goes....

One of my favorite analogies is the rental car, mostly because it easily exposes the faulty reasoning of the anti-unlimited argument. The typical argument is a variation of: "there is no such thing as an infinitely large HD, thus there is no such thing as unlimited web space"

Their argument now becomes: One can rent a car with specified mileage limits (at least one could when I was young) or rent one with unlimited mileage. But unlimited mileage cannot exist because there is no such thing as an infinite gas tank, or infinite roads.

Of course, these critics would be considered lunatics in an auto rental forum. Check one out -- there are no threads bashing rental agencies offering unlimited mileage. Why? Because its obvious that in this context its the rental company determines the allowed mileage, not the gas tank or other hardware. Its obvious to everyone that the car will stop when it runs out of gas. No need to even consider that. Context is everything.

Its the same for web hosting. Its the provider that determines the allowed disk space, not the hard drive. Its obvious to everyone that the hard drive has a finite size and storage space will eventually run out.

Again, context is everything

What matters is who or what is doing the limiting.... the car rental agency that provides unlimited mileage is not a claim to a perpetual motion machine, it is the absence of the agency making a limit.

As I warned myself at the beginning, there will be those that will take analogies and bend them, twist them into something else. Analogies are meant as an explanation not a direct substitution. If someone posts that I am wrong because a gas tank is not a hard drive I won't be surprised. But it could reveal an intellectual shortcoming.

And here it is, just like I predicted in red above:

.... when you hire the care you can travel 100 miles before paying extra or you can travel around the globe 1000 times as long as you fill the fuel tank without any extra fire charges.

this is 1000% different to unlimited web hosting SPACE as this is like the fuel tank as a hard drive has a set limit of say 300GB like a fuel take has a limited capacity of 50 litres and that once this is full you have to empty it to fill it up again, but the limit still stays the same.

Nevermind when the rental agency gives you a car with "unlimited mileage" you get only one tank of gas. Moreover, it doesn't take much intellectual muscle to see that replacing the gasoline in the now empty tank is analogous to installing another hard drive when the first one is full.

Now the analogy becomes the debate, hence my hesitation to use analogies.

And that is 1000% true!

Its obvious this poster does not know what an analogy is or what its used for, namely in this case, to illustrate the difference beween a provider supplied limit and a hardware limit. He already has made it clear in previous posts he does not know the difference between a quota policy and a piece of hardware. I try to explain it in many way on many occasions. I guess he'll never understand....which is too bad for someone in the hosting business.

 

[Sidular]

it was just to say that both situations are totally different. Blue even gave the english dictionary legal definition of unlimited, but it seems that only 2 people on this whole forum that have stated they were leaving the forum (http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/general-discussion/33383-goodbye-hosting-discussion.html) basically because others dont see things their way dont seem to know how to read or use a dictionary

1. Blue was incorrect in his statement. The definition of words do in fact change, and the use of Unlimited has changed, based on the simple fact that a large number of industries use it by its non literal definition.

2. Collabora used what is called an 'analogy', which describes the similarities of two entirely different situations. His goal was to help you, and others, better understand what 'unlimited' hosting is.

3. That thread has absolutely nothing to do with anything. However, as stated by the last paragraph, "I will return again, but likely just as an observer, rather than as a contributor" which didn't in any way rule out the possibility of me returning, but rather, if I did return, I wouldn't be as active as I once was.

4. We're not 'leaving' because others fail to share the same opinions, but rather, the hostility of 'others' who wish to defend their opinions, and want to hear nothing in return from the supposed 'attacker' or 'intruder'. The lack of an open mind, and the complete unwillingness to accept new industry standards. That is what 'angers' us the most, not the simple act of engaging ourselves in a conversation or debate.
Basically, because we are accepting the new industry 'unlimited' standard, we're the 'bad guys' of the community, and are treated as such.
However, when we provide our own side of the story, our opinions, the other side, in this case 'your' side, actually has the audacity to call the other industry leaders 'thieves' for using a method of hosting that the 'other side' doesn't accept or understand.
To call out a whole side of the web hosting industry because they use a term that you disagree with is a form of being naive and ignorant, or quite simply, unwilling to accept change, and fighting against such change when that change threatens what you believe in, or the way that you handle or run your own hosting services.
We are in no way attempting to get you to change the way that you operate your hosting services, as quite honestly, we don't care enough to do so. It's your company to do with as you please.
All we are trying to do is get you, and others, to open your eyes to the way that others operate their services. To simply state that unlimited is a scam or a fraud is a very stupid thing to do, at least, without first researching and understanding what the term itself truly means when applied to the web hosting industry.

You're basing your entire argument on a term that you do not comprehend. To add to that, you're not even willing to attempt to understand the term, and act hostile towards anyone who wishes to help you understand.


Analogies help people understand. To reword something in a language or phrase that others could relate to. However, it seems as though you, and the other 'anti-unlimited' crowd (as Collabora refers to them) are completely unwilling to even take anything that we say into consideration, let alone accept anything that happens to come out of our mouths as truth or fact. (even if you do not believe it to be truth or fact, you simply don't have enough knowledge on the subject to come up with your own solid basis of understanding)

 

[Collabora]

Definitions according to the Oxford Dictionary:

Unlimited: "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent:
the range of possible adaptations was unlimited"

My example: The disk space quota is unlimited

Analogy: "a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification:
an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies"

My example: A host offering unlimited disk space (or bandwidth) is like a car rental agency offering unlimited mileage

 

[node24x7]

Wow, people are leaving over individual opinions. Anyways, back to topic I personally believe unlimited is here to stay irrespective of those who believe just a scam.

 

[Alex - A2 Hosting]

Wow, people are leaving over individual opinions. Anyways, back to topic I personally believe unlimited is here to stay irrespective of those who believe just a scam.

Unlimited will only grow and grow .

If you have the right client base size, the right marketing budget then unlimited will get you a long way ahead.

 

[Artashes]

One of my favorite analogies is the rental car, mostly because it easily exposes the faulty reasoning of the anti-unlimited argument. [...] Their argument now becomes: One can rent a car with specified mileage limits (at least one could when I was young) or rent one with unlimited mileage. But unlimited mileage cannot exist because there is no such thing as an infinite gas tank, or infinite roads.

In my view, this wasn't the best analogy. As long as you put gas in the tank and drive forever, you can indeed drive an endless number of miles. Nobody stops driving a rental car when the gas runs out. Gas is a necessity to deliver the core service, much like a server needs electricity to work.

A better analogy would be a restaurant business.

If I go to a regular restaurant and order 3 cans of my favorite ginger ale (mmm...), I expect to be charged for all 3 because I drank them.
If I go to an all-you-can eat restaurant, I cannot sit there all day long and eat, as I get hungry throughout the day. I will likely be asked to leave.

Now, relating this to the hosting industry, if my hosting space is limited to 1 GB, but I need more, I expect to pay extra for it, since I am using it. It has nothing to do with penalizing the success of the site, as you mentioned in your other post.
If I have an unlimited package, chances are there is something in the TOS that will prevent me from exploring the true unlimited resource.

At the end of the day, as a hosting provider, you have the right to go either way. It all comes down to how they choose to structure your plans.

As you correctly noted, all plans are just marketing devices to get customers. Every customer will decide for himself where his/her purchasing comfort zone is (limited plans vs unlimited plans). We tend to personally disagree that there are ethical issues when it comes to labeling the services "unlimited", but such difference in views doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's been here for years and it is likely to continue to cause friction between the two camps.

This conversation isn't going anywhere at all, and it's just an endless rant between two sides of the industry that share very different opinions.

Artashes, can you please lock this thread, once and for all? There's no reason to keep this going. No one's providing any valuable input anymore.

Could not have summarized it better myself.

I think we've heard enough arguments from each side and learned (once again) that the difference of opinion is here to stay.

Thread closed. Let's all take a break from this particular argument for a while.