Ad Terras Per Aspera

Well this is very interesting, Dreamhost, the hosting company I use to host this very website you are now reading, has now upgraded their services… for a mere $7.95 a month (prepaid 2 years, $9.95 a month otherwise), you get…

• 2 TB of bandwidth per month, increasing weekly by 16GB
• 200GB of disk storage, increasing weekly by 16GB
• Unlimited domain hosting, unlimited subdomains, unlimited email aliases, unlimited mailing lists
• Access to a Jabber server
• PHP4, PHP5, Ruby, and FastCGI support
• One click auto-installs for WordPress, Gallery2, Mediawiki, and other often used web applications
• 3000 email boxes, and access to the mail service via POP3, IMAP, SMTP, and a webmail service
• Shell access, with up to 75 users, including access to Cron
• A free domain name that actually belongs to you (unlike other providers that register it and keep ownership of it as well)
• Optional: The ability to sound like a total fanboy/sell-out on your blog

Not only that, if you use the combo code ATPA50 when ordering, you get $50 off your order. That comes out to only $70 a year, and for a great service like this (which I personally give five stars, two thumbs up, and a 10/10 grade), how can you afford to use any other hosting company?

Sometimes I do actually wish there was a law preventing Company-sucks.com style websites. In this case, I’m speaking about Dreamhost-Sucks.com, a website that spews multiple false statements, has poorly written posts, and other poorly thought out ideas.

1. They state that the Better Buisness Bureau is a government ran organization: this is false. The BBB is a company, and is not associated with any government department. The BBB does not exist to assist consumers in getting complaints resolved, but only exists to assist BBB members to bash non-BBB members.The BBB does not allow non-BBB members to close complaints, and allows anyone to make a compliant, even if they are unfounded, or impossible. If the non-BBB member resolves the matter, the BBB does not close the complaint. BBB membership is expensive, and most companies do not belong to the BBB.Dreamhost’s so-called ‘F’ rating is due to their refusal to belong to fraudulant organization such as the BBB, and I fully support their decision.
2. They state that customers are unable to host forums or blogs due to CPU utalization: this is false. I currently use WordPress and Gallery2 as my website, and they are not easy on the CPU by any means. However, they are not as bad as the next thing on my list…
3. They state that Dreamhost will not host phpBB: if this is true, and I have not verified this, I do not blame them. phpBB is bloated, badly written, a pain in the ass to maintain. Update: Apparently this is totally unfounded, phpBB is available from Dreamhost’s One-Click Install system, right next to WordPress and Gallery2.
4. They state that Dreamhost is ‘too good to be true’, and you get what you pay for: I hate to say this, but Dreamhost is not cheap. $9.95 a month (with a $50 setup fee if you don’t pre-order a year) for a mere 20GB storage and 1TB a month bandwidth is not cheap, there are many hosting providers who quote even bigger numbers for lower prices. Dreamhost, from what I’ve seen, is in the middle of the road for prices, and closer to the top for features and performance.
5. They state that Dreamhost is constantly down: Yet again, false. Over the past few months I’ve had only one downtime, which was for around an hour while they were doing maintaince on a wonky router. Dreamhost exceeds my requirements to be called reliable, and they approach of not exceed 99.999% reliablity.
6. They state that Dreamhost does not answer tech support emails: Yet again, false. Since things rarely go wrong on Dreamhost, I’ve only had to request support once, and it was quickly answered and taken care of. I wish all companies were that fast.
7. They state that Dreamhost has hidden CPU limitations: False. Dreamhost’s policy is that only the worst abusers get punished, and even then they seek to help correct the problem before disabling an account. CPU time statistics are not available, but then again, they shouldn’t be if you aren’t paying by the minute.
8. They state that Dreamhost disables accounts without warning. False. Unless you’ve done something really really really wrong, such as upload warez, or any other undesirable material, Dreamhost always tries to work with the customer before disabling accounts.
9. They state that Dreamhost unfairly bans abusive users who swear and threaten on their forums and blogs: Guess what, this one is totally true. You act stupid, you get your ass kicked. I’m not seeing a problem here.
10. They state that Dreamhost unfairly holds you to your contract: Another true one. If you make a one or two year pre-paid contract with Dreamhost, by law, they can hold you to that contract. By ending your account with Dreamhost, they have a right to consider that as a breach of contract and keep your money. Yet again, I’m not seeing a problem here.
11. The final one: This website was started in February of 2006, and only has postings for Februrary and April. It is now September. Did some teenager forget about his project? Or did some rival hosting company think better of it?

So, I don’t know why anyone would go and do this if they didn’t have some sort of alterior motive. I put people like this in the same category as people who say Apple products suck, or that President Bush is the best President ever in US history: complete whackos who are several fries short of a Happy Meal.