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Happy Cyber Monday - Changes to LowEndTalk
mpkossen
Member
Happy Cyber Monday to all! In celebration of this cyberday, I am happy two announce two changes to LowEndTalk, one of which is quite a major one.
Shared and reseller offers are now allowed
As of this moment it is allowed for providers to post shared and reseller offers within a set of strict rules:
- Shared hosting may not cost more than $2/month or $10/year
- Reseller hosting may not cost more than $4/month or $15/year for providers younger than a year or $20/year for providers older than a year
A separate category for these offers has been made. Each provider is, from now on, allowed to post one offer per category ('Offers' and 'Shared/reseller offers') per 14 days.
Multi-annual pricing for VPS offers
Pricing for more than one year has always been a grey area. Providers did it and sometimes those offers were removed, sometimes they were modified, and sometimes we just didn't notice it or let it slide.
This time is over. We now allow pricing for more than one year under strict rules:
- A provider must be a registered business
- A provider must have been a registered business for over two years
- Multi-annual pricing may not exceed $96 for the entire term
- Multi-annual pricing may not be for more than three years
Comments
I love the progress that you have made for the community
Keep up the good work, broer.
Interesting things going on at LowEndTalk now!
I told you so marker
Just marking this point so I can refer later to the ridiculous amount of shared/reseller hosting crap being posted on the forum. VPS whilst still easy to do requires 4 brain cells to do OVZ plans, shared/reseller plan are brain cell optional.
Now there will be a daily "why my cpanel account no work!!"
I guess that will bring more traffic to LET :P
For all the wrong reasons though, no offence to some but I see the site being swamped with Indian/Chinese people trying to throw $1 plans at this forum using Master Reseller accounts.
at least have a separate forum for those out of the way.
I understand your concern.
We will naturally keep an eye out on the situation and if it does indeed turn into what you describe here we may very well amend the rules as required.
Because CVPS want to do multi year deals you mean
The rules post seems to be gone completely now, also with so many things that could be improved I have to wonder why this is considered a big change.
If anything I think the semi-annual pricing is the biggest loop hole.
Or HVH who just happened to get an LEB offer listed today.
It's back now. If you edit an announcement it looses the "announcement" status... You gotta love Vanilla!
It's a big change considering we're accepting shared and reseller hosting now.
Those are the ones that triggered the discussion, yes. We removed them/edited them and it caused confusion.
The rules didn't have anything in them on multi-year deals, so some providers were of the opinion that it was allowed to offer them. I stuck to the $48/year protective measure for one-year deals that we had in place and edited/remove/hid the offers that were posted.
After discussing this with ColoCrossing, I came up with the idea to allow multi-year pricing to go over the $48 protective limit, only if some sort of safeguard was in place (in this case: being an "established", registered business).
Same company.... "Colo Valley Green Hudson Chicago Blue Connect LLC"
But yeah anyway, from the rules "VPS must not exceed USD$48/year recurring on annual billing" yet there are offers for $36 semi-annual and could be offers of $47 semi annual according to the rules.
bit silly.
IMO just do away with the lot, $7 p/month or equivalent, just dont allow young providers to post 6 monthly or yearly deals for a while, problem solved.
This is only on LET. As long as the place is not known to "unlimited" guys, there wont be much abuse. If there will be, can always be withdrawn.
Might be better if we make the provider to be in business for at least as long (if not twice as long) than the term they are offering? Might be a bit weird for a provider with 2 yrs in to offer a 3 yr deal.
HVH and ColoCrossing are owned by the same parent company, it's in the post. I'm not sure what else you want to achieve by posting this?
That's a good suggestion. I'm going to take that under consideration and discuss it. It would indeed solve most problems.
Exactly.
We may even introduce a rule against unlimited HDD/traffic if it turns out to be a problem.
The reason behind the two years is to have at least a record of continuation. It's never a guarantee for the future, but it's at least something. Making it double the term would really limit the amount of companies being able to benefit from this and would only make it apply to CVPS and HVH (and perhaps a very limited number of others).
Its called, having a dig
we all know they are the same company even if the public paper trail says other wise and in ironic twist in a post about a new rule that further benefits them.
Aside from that, this place is a commercial board now, how about shortening the offer time to 7 days to match the 7 dollar thing.
Even if that were the case, I'm not sure what's the reason for putting it here. It's not really constructive.
And of course it benefits them. Like I've stated, HVH and CVPS were the two companies to come here with such pricing and as a result of that, we have clarified the rules/made them more explicit rather than just letting it be. I honestly don't see the harm in that.
It's been a commercial board since, what, @Chief took over? That must have been like three years now if I'm correct. Heck, @Chief even came up with some of the ads that still circle here. His sole purpose was to grow the site into something commercial to sell it later. Nothing else, simple as that.
We're not going to change the time allowed to post offers at this time. We may take up your suggestion in the future, but I'd first like to give the shared/reseller thing a go before we make more changes.
Multi years deal is bad for customers, TBH. If I remember correctly a member of this forum, @zen, lost a couple of hundred dollars for paying 5 years deal to hostrail.
Fixed that for you.
haha, its bad I know but that actually just made me laugh.
IMO, having CVPS & HVH offers the 3 years deal, @mpkossen saw potentially abused point that unknown providers might offer the same deal then run away with customers' money. Therefore, some kind of rules must be placed to prevent LET members from being scammed.
@vRozenSch00n Rule #1 of LET, research before you buy!
That's why many LET members keep mentioning CVPS, 123systems etc, for a reminder.
But to be frank,
we alsoI personally believe that a good business should learn from the past mistake, therefor when I have spare budget, I buy a service for a month or two from those "high risk" providers, just to know whether they are trying to improve the service or not.HVH used to have great services when they were still with TKI. I bet looking at the way TKI charge abusers, it is hard for the downstream to keep sustainable business.
Shared offers aren't auto sinking
Tbh anyone taking a 5 year deal in the hosting industry is really as bad as the provider offering it.
My PayPal account was banned when I canceled multiple subscriptions from hostrail for suspicious account activity, and marked "No possibility to appeal". I tried to explain, but they keep the account limited.
Fortunately a couple of weeks ago I tried to call them, and after several verification they reinstate my account
Damn, now I'll buy shared hosting as well
It would made more since if Shared and Reseller had their own categories.
PayPal reinstated an account which was permanently Limited?? O.o This is unbelievable.
Yes, I had some balance there, waited 6 months until I can retrieve it to my bank. Then the account officer emailed me that the account has been closed.
Not long after, when I paid a service with my CC via PP, a pop-up appeared and forced me to login to my account, and everything is still there, but I can't use my CC.
After I got an advise from @Dalcomp
somewhereedit: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/36947/virtual-visa-card#latest in one of the threads here a few weeks ago, I called PP Singapore and it took only an hour or so, then my account was reinstateI guess they change the regulation for Asian.
I will get that looked into. We have a custom plugin for that and it doesn't apply the sink to the new category.
Yey for shared hosting! Screw VPS!
Does reseller hosting include VPS reseller / other hosting reseller programs or just 'shared website hosting reseller'?