New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
I don't have a firm eta so I wouldn't want to share a time line I don't have confidence in yet.
We have already seen a mock up and expect more progress over the following few weeks.
After we lock in a design it'll go to the coding side of things.
I'm not much active member here.
But communities that are built on the internet are driven by democracy.
If there are abrupt changes which take away people's liberty to contribute, or there is an "evil corporate" takeover, this makes users agitated. People quit and never look back.
Happened with Digg.com
The beauty of lowendtalk is that, it helped small dedicated providers become medium, at the same time the community helped filtering low-quality soon-to-deadpool providers using their comments.
reddit, despite being biggest forum (which now a psyops/datamining paradise ^^), has received intense backlash when they rolled out changes people didn't like.
I'd say that there has to be a middle ground, like multiple tiers subscription which caters small to big providers.
I was planning on getting a provider tag here because i've started my own VPS hosting as a nieche part of my company. Well. Thats it.
Many providers listed their last offer here on March 31st. I'll close my account as of today aswell and will refrain from posting or supporting this community anymore.
It was a pleasure to be with LET for so many years (11). Sadly, it all has to come to an end. Cashing providers for something they are not here for is a dumb move and the current owner has absolutely no clue what spirit has driven the majority of users onto this platform to discuss, exchange knowledge and just enjoy what they love.
Thanks for ruining a wonderful place in the internet.
After 11 years on LET/LEB
fLoo goes 404
Thanks everyone!
You are aware that a Host Rep tag is free, right?
There are actually a nunber of options:
Aren't "providers" here to run a business and make money or am I missing something?
I don't see how it's a dumb move for the platform that exists to connect providers to customers to need to cover operational costs and get a slice of the action themselves. It's just business as far as I can see it.
Yes!
And if a hosting company isn't looking to advertise then they can opt for the FREE option.
I think @floo missed that part of it.
I think too many people have created too much noise and some people can't see the forest for the trees here because of it.
There are obvious benefits for the provider tag, and there are genuine concerns for the very small/brand new players who might not see the value.
Those new/upstart providers could easily launch themselves 100% without a provider tag or paying a cent to LET/LEB and even score themselves a chance to get mentioned on LEB in the numerous call-outs I've seen for providers to do just that, yet nobody except the serious business-people take the opportunity.
And then, when the time is right for that provider who took the opportunities, they could maybe see sense in a provider tag and pay the fee.
I have no horse in the race, I'm not a provider, just a regular old member of these forums, but I am definitely in the category of a customer and I think it's great to know that the lights will stay on for this site and to see how these businesses evolve their strategy for promotion/advertising moving forward.
That doesn't make sense. The ad revenue is more than enough to keep the lights on, and none of the money being collected is being used to help businesses evolve their strategies.
It's being used to pay people to create NerdRacks ad videos on YouTube. Their payment is directly being used to advertise their competitors.
Indeed. If provider was offering "Free hosting" they could have argued as they are not making money on it. But offering paid-services might attract a fee. It's everywhere now!
I personally think the videos are a waste of time and that Jon could get much better value somewhere else, but you raise a valid point there.
After all, it's all just a matter of opinion until we can look back 12 months from now and find data.
Unless you want to get meme'd like IPV6@CC, probably not a good idea ....
Francisco
And this is exactly the reason why i quit here. You simply do not understand my point. Thanks for replying though.
Your ads 100% cover all of your running costs. LowEndS*irit for example has a 30$ monthly running cost. A direct competitor. You're earning more then enough with the ads already.
The 200$ fee is just so you can pocket them yourself. Thats not what this community once stood for and thats the point you will most likely never understand.
Oh and "thanks" for removing my profile image and my profile text just because it shows a competitor to this site. I wanted friends i made here to see where i moved to. All for the money again, right?!
No mate. LES is not even vaguely comparable to LET in any terms.
Jon paid cash money for this site and it’s not been paying him back as to yet. He wants some ROI. Do you want his kids to go without a Rolex? Are you some kind of animal?
When I was an active member of this forum, providers would post offers that barely made them any money or lose money in some cases because they liked the community and wanted people to try and learn VMs. I wouldn't have the knowledge as I do today without those $15/year VPSes.
Maybe give one free post a month for small providers that are active in the community or something. I'm sure once they make money they don't mind paying.
The thing people fail to realize is this is done. It's set in stone. Your suggestions won't provoke change because a few people have already agreed to the rushed terms and have made payment already.
It would be unfair to those who have paid to adjust things to better accommodate those who have not. They matter because they have more money to waste and have spent it. You don't matter because you're able to see through the nonsense and realize it's not worth the cost for you.
Just advertise in your signature and rely on word of mouth for this forum. If you run a decent business, sales will come. If you depend on LET to make sales, you're already losing the game.
Shut they might make signatures paid as well so you cann not put ads there
What is benefit of provider tag when there is favoritism for few. Say, someone small gets a provider tag (paying the fee), advertise his stuff but since he/she is not well-known, his posts are undermined by owner's favorite. Clearly the money was used to create videos for the favourites and were actively promoted in form of "Announcement" for good while. Isn't it deterring to new potential providers ?
At that point they may as well start linking here for a pricing page.
So OVH paid the invoice, but Hetzner didn’t!
I guess that's because they have no use of the Provider Tag here since they (Katie & Helena) don't really post offers but only represent Hetzner to share Hetzner-related news/updates or to answer any questions related to Hetzner.
I’m more surprised OVH did, tbh.
So am I since they have a few reps around here and it looks like 3 of them still have their tags
I think people get confused because the word "community" gets thrown around so much. It may have been a community at some point, but it's now a business and it needs revenue.
Rip their Top Provider tag though, same for Fran. Seems odd that this change now results in those providers not having their recognition for being voted Top Providers because they decided to not pay for a Provider tag.
Even though it's just an unfortunate side-effect, it feels wrong.
I'm not too surprised. The KS and SYS brands are aimed squarely at the lowend market and having the vultures here snap them all up probably helps for business enough to justify the cost.
To be fair the top provider tags for this year were decided well before, and without knowledge of, Jon's intentions for this place; and might as well respect that.
The idea of "Top Provider" as voted by LowEndTalk is something that we may create a separate badge of honor for.
Open to suggestions on the tag title.
Maybe "Community Favorite Host" or "Leading Host" or "Top Host" etc.
I'm gonna give a "scandalous" statement.
I donate to LES because I find value in their methods and ways. I'm not active in their community but I've been aware of it since Anthony Smith started it. I also support this growth to LET and see value in it because of the expected/potential benefit of higher quality content. At minimum, it's to help with video production as it's freaking expensive.
Everyone has a place. If this doesn't work then it doesn't work, but at least it's trying.
If you want to disassociate from the "Provider" terminology to prevent confusion with the paid status, then I think "Top Host" is fine. Better to not overcomplicate these terms.
Makes sense, good suggestion.