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And what audience does LEB serve? The blog posts and tutorials are way too diverse. Many cloud providers pay writers to write instructional articles that have a good chance of being googled. Looking at the titles of the first two pages of LEB, I cannot imagine anyone reaching LEB from a google search. The range of topics is also so diverse it's just weird. It's not bad content, it's just that there's few people who would be interested in all that.
Anyway, the weirdest thing to me were the 9 shill posts for a VPN within 4 months on LEB. I get it, VPNs offer pretty good referral money. Somewhere in the range of 80-100+%. But the shilling is too much. It makes me wonder how much is being paid to write these shill posts and I cannot believe it's actually profitable for the VPN provider.
Exactly..
This is has been put forward by many yet not even being acknowledged. Almost everyone criticizing this move, then what is wrong in pausing and rethinking this strategy.
I remember finding LEB first which ultimately lead me to register on LET.
I have followed the discussion so far with interest. However, only as a customer and not as a provider. Some thoughts on the whole thing, however, I also still have and maybe you could think about it again.
after the provider database was cleaned out and now by the introduction of the subscriptionmodel still further purges are to be expected, the overview over "genuine and active" providers seems to be manufactured.
i would like to see that when you click on a username with providertag, then you can also definitely recognize for which provider this user speaks here or which provider is represented here. this is so far sometimes not recognizable.
I was hoping the limit would increase a bit more substantially, to at least $150, that would have allowed to market a wider selection of the services, including some unmetered deals.
Let's get to the point. Just rename this place to RacknerdTalk.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Agree with SGraf as startup providers like us need a stand for business promotion... appreciate if given an entry level discount.
Thanks
Hello,
Last year I posted 2 offers...
the price comes out to 100 USD each offer.
Sorry, it is not profitable for me and therefore I will not pay it.
I think something like 3 USD per bid posted would be more acceptable.
But that would end up hurting purple daddy with all the threads that he keeps creating
The number of posts you make is surely irrelevant? If each offer nets you $500 in profit you otherwise wouldn't have, then the $100 would still be worthwhile, would it not? Obviously if you're not making $100 profit per offer post, it makes zero sense financially.
If that were the benefit, believe me I would gladly pay for it.
This is a total sham. You randomly send out an invoice for $100 unannounced, which almost looked like a scam, and try to play it off as bettering LowEndTalk?
This is nothing but a money grab and them trying to build their own life off of this forum at the expense of providers.
Exactly. So the problem is that you’re not the target market, LET is basically saying we don’t want/need you anymore.
I see many regulars who were active contributors to the forum at various points in the past 4-5 years already have reduced their interaction or have become inactive. Once the current set of regulars disengage or leave as well, the only the people who'd be left are those who come for RN's giveaways and double bandwidth, so it might not be as far away as you think.
If that’s the route to maximising income, then why not. Can’t blame JB for wanting that.
The content on yoursunny blog is more diverse than LEB and I still get readers from organic search.
Each topic has an audience: people who search for this topic.
Solution: Introduce more cheaper plan(starter) with less posting limits. Such as 1 post each month - $50 year.
Or
Charge per post in offer section. Average earning from per post can be $240 or $120 per year from each active member.
Kunnu, I’m afraid to say you are likely not JBs target market, and LET is no longer for you.
Despite our differences, I will be sad to see you go. Unless I go first, obviously.
This "sending invoices out of the blue" reminds me of Calin getting the perfume king database.
He got banned for such a shady practice.
See where I'm going with that?
There is the right way of introducing changes, and then theres the jb way of doing it. Rushed, spammy and less than desirable.
But in the end of the day - its colocrossing doing what colocrossing does best.
I definitely respect you for replying to all of us and taking in the feedback but I don't really get what there is to work out sorry.
If you want to charge providers (that are your main source of traffic) then you're killing your business for a short term increase in revenue. A new forum will most likely pop up and they'll steal most of your traffic. They'll be a good place to post offers and then when they try the same fee based system, they'll soon be replaced as well. WHT proved that charging your main traffic source doesn't end well.
Our company will most likely not be interested in paying to be a provider, due to the above point (and other points made previously) but also due to the rules on this forum being quite unprofessional. It seems like the wild west out here sometimes to be perfectly honest. You have obviously dodgy providers that are unbanned, admins apparently editting peoples posts (I haven't seen this personally but I've seen a lot of people complain about it) and things like this where you get sent an invoice for something you didn't purchase.
As I said previously, we'll try to come up with a good deal before our provider tag is stripped as a good will gesture to LET for thanks for what they've provided us over the previous years, even if we've operated at a loss at points in time to bring in some traffic for LET
Cheers,
QC
@Cam how about you?
the price comes out to 100 USD each offer.
Why not post more often?
I get it. Maybe Host Rep is the best fit for your company. That said, I think the value of being able to post dozens of offers per years on LowEndTalk and the resulting direct sales income plus the indirect SEO benefit is well worth the $16/month.
He got banned for such a shady practice.
It wasn't out of the blue, there was an announced thread in the provider section here on LowEndTalk. That said, I should have still sent an email notice first before the emailed invoices went out. That was my mistake.
Each topic has an audience: people who search for this topic.
Content is king. It creates a massive funnel of new viewers and users to LEB and LET both. It's immensely important towards growing our community.
LET is for everyone.
Good suggestion, thank you for sharing.
why not just charge a small yearly fee (smaller than WHT) to allow providers to post without price limits? and leave everything else as usual (or a bit more limited regarding post frequency) for free provider tags
if you continue, this change will kill events such as black friday...
LET may be for everyone, but posting offers on LET is only for those who pay the toll.
Thanks for the suggestion, something to consider for sure.
Black Friday 2022 will be our best yet. Not to worry
Given the changes we've made to Host Reps after listening to feedback I think we are finding a good middle ground.
Crazy. very nice.
This week we also finish migration of a shared colo customer (Hosting Company who also is registered here) located in multiple shared racks to his own very own first Full Rack.
They always grow with you if you handle it correctly.
Good story and congrats on making that happen for your company.
Every year the value of the content and quality of the providers drops on Low End Talk. More 'Colocrossing affiliated' template providers show up, sell for a month then disappear and then turn into one of many ghost ships floating around here. Any provider worth their salt here learned to try and post outside the posts of the 'Colocrossing affiliated' hosts but then users who get free things or special deals from some of these hosts prop up providers advertising threads, by continuing to comment on threads, so that they end up with more exposure than all other hosts. Then the site, if you are not using adblock is full of spam advertisements which advertise services which don't even follow the forum rules, so pretty much anyone (wild west). Now they want to charge the small start-up business a $200.00 fee just to post offers likely in lieu of doing any real research if they are a legit provider or not, all the while also likely waving the fee for those who come from 'Colocrossing affiliated' cookie cutter start-ups that they support, providing certain providers even more advantages over others.
This just prevents new competitors that are not 'Colocrossing affiliated' or who do not already have money to burn from entering the market, it doesn't improve the quality of provider, the market, the services provided or provide any better customer choice. So the only 'people' who benefit from this are Jon and his friends at / affiliates of Colocrossing. The user / reader loses in this deal as now new small providers entering the market will be kept from advertising here and you are going to slowly only be funneled to the hosts which can 'afford' to be here, regardless of the actual quality of the host.
Of course, they haven't really cared about the community for a long time outside the money to be made from it, it is just becoming more and more obvious as they throw it in our faces. Most people who used to make this place valuable have already moved on and most of what is left is just newbies trying to learn about virtual servers who then are mislead to think they can trust all the hosts here because they don't do their own research (and we no longer promote doing your own research either) and trolls. The few long time members that are left, check in more and more infrequently, including my self, because its just slowly turning into spam / ad platform with very few new interesting providers showing up and mostly all on the same networks, providing less and less consumer choice as time passes, not more.
As @deank would say, sadly, "The end is neigh".
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
You will pay it, or you will cry and pay it. The collection agency will show you no mercy.
The end is nigh