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I'm mostly with you on the free credit part, but come on, that's apples and oranges.
Besides, they can't retroactively expire existing paid credit under New York law. There has to be a clear disclosure of the expiration date at purchase so they'd only be able to do it for new credit buys.
Agreed. Most people will have exactly the same perspective, costing DO, if not customers, than part of those old customers' business for sure.
I am sure they do not see it this way. They need to make money now, not have tons of customers. It looks like the pump and dump schemes do not work anymore so plan B is implemented by many people, see EDIS, for example which have to shed the loss-making customers and part of business in order to survive, even though they did not really look to sell the customers from the start, they really thought it can work out.
The DO venture was done for this purpose at first, in my view, get in a year 100k accounts, sell to godaddy or something a turnkey business in "the cloud".
As I knew from the start, it did not work and they now have to face the venture capitalists which are demanding income so they can get out of it and make a profit too.
OVH managed to raise more money, but I doubt DO can, given the different financing sources.
In this day and age there are lots of cheap money in the market, so venture funds will do anything for a way to "invest" better than negative interest deposits and bonds and extremely overevaluated shares. The cheap money made possible this thinking: we can create a business out of money and then sell with profit.
It does not work that way, most of the time, this thinking produces losses to everyone involved and kills the market too by offering unrealistic prices, promos and expectations, we are living in a bubble in many areas, and as you see, the reality checks start to weight in, soon there will be panic and a new global crisis, this time created by too cheap money, not too scarce ones, a real crisis, where most businesses will close, not a banking crisis where banks can be propped up. At least in the technology area, the bubble already burst, it remains for the people to notice it.
Different cases entirely. EDIS seems to be intentionally sheddimg paying customers who are a drain on resources. DO's deadbeats cost them nothing, shedding them will not improve their bottom line. What DO is doing aims at changing their debt to equity ratio, shedding debt on the books in 2016. Understandable and smart. This was a very big oversight on somebody's part - the 1 year promo credit validity clause shoud have been in there from the very beginning. It would not have impacted signups as people tend not to look a gift horse in the mouth. This said, correcting this oversight now in such an arbitrary fashion and without much thought, it seems, WILL cost them business and future revenue.
I am waiting for DO to launch the services in HK to use my credit
Sorry to hear that.
I stop promoting DO because this "pending" credit, looking for another competitor and satisfied by promoting Vultr, and also you can withdraw Vultr affiliate credit to paypal.
This is true for most jurisdictions. DO's unilateral, retroactive change in terms can be construed as breach of contract. One could simply notify DO he/she does not acquiesce to their new terms and ask them to pay out the remaining credit balance and close the account. DO would likely refuse. The next step would be to sue them in court. Given the relatively small sums involved, few if any people would pursue this course of action, though, something DO is obviously banking on.
That is true, but do is doing the same, they gave free credit left and right and this was expected, I am sure the freebies are also a drain of resources, they were needed only to pump up the numbers and show how "successful" DO are.
Since it became clear nobody will pay many millions for the company, this is no longer needed (high number of customers), but good revenue and profit instead. It is either or.
Actually, deadwood accounts are no drain, the new policy may very well turn out to be, though, since it is likely to motivate people to start using up their credit
Come, come, don't be jealous
And successful they are. My hat off to them 
Nothing wrong with a little creativity and strategy starting up. And I found that starting your business planning with a clearly defined exit strategy is key to big time success. Too many entrepreneurs get married to their business, instead of treating is as the tool to their personal wealth and success.
haha, point taken. However, the real deadwood accounts are not checking their email from do and are unlikely to know about this before it actually expires.
Actually, DO failed hard in most aspects. I bet any serious company here would have done much more with that kind of money than come up with an hourly service with low choice and a lot of constraints. No own ISO, limited choice of kernels, even fewer locations than other companies with less resources and which expanded faster.
Sure, more successful than a summer host, undoubtedly, but $ per $, no, not even close to Ramnode or even Vultr which is more or less of a similar caliber.
It depends what success is, if you are only after money, sure.
They are not entrepreneurs per se, but people creating their own employments using their hobbies to make money, many people pay money for their hobbies, these make money from them. These are also the companies paying the taxes used by states, not the ones taking advantage of every fiscal break and paradise and when they still have to pay something, they pay lawmakers and governments to make a special loophole.
Pretty sure that's what DO's hoping for
Agree with you one hundred percent! Nevertheless, they are a big success business-wise, despite all that.
If you're not after money, it's not a business, but a hobby or total waste of time and resources. Socially irresponsible, too. After all, you make commitments to your employees and business partners and they count on you to meet your fiscal obligations in a timely manner.
And what's wrong with stacking a deck a little in your favor? Taxation without representation seems the name of the game in most countries these days. The American Colonies went to war to fight such injustice. Then they proceeded to build one of the most repressive tax systems and enforcement apparatus to match. Ditto most other jurisdictions, with EU leading the charge these days. Taxes pay for essential services, you say? Sure. Tell that to the Americans paying for "essential services" in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Tell that to the Germans, amongst others, paying for the same in Greece. And tune in to your favorite news and listen to all the thanks and goodwill that gets them! No, thanks
The credit from the GitHub students pack will not expire either, as long as you keep using it. That's what one of the support employees said at least.
Socially irresponsible is not paying taxes. I agree with you that the cults are using much more than the taxes paid for religious wars constantly borrowing instead of doing the social work the society is supposed to do, however, not paying taxes is not the way to change things, the vote is that way, being informed, seeing through the propaganda, etc.
In a sense, you are right, the modern acceptance of the term, a business's primary purpose is to generate money (the old sense of business is occupation), people must lend 1/5 of their life to make money to live the rest of the 1/4 together with their family.
This is why capitalism is failing, people must not be coerced into a company policy, must have the right to try and fail their own ideas, only those that are really passionate, do not encounter "company policy" in their way, or that the company policy is really good which many people try, but most fail to implement in a large company, could if really lucky, persistent and strong willed to bring advancement.
The so called management of large "businesses" succeeds extremely rarely, the big companies these days usually survive due to tax breaks and government support, in reality, a small business has much more operating profit, 25% is far from being unheard of, even 50%, the more passion, the more chances to be more successful, unless the owner is a total moron and unable to admit it to relinquish the business decisions to a relative or a friend.
As for responsibility to employees and all, wat? Do you really think Chase manhattan will care for the doorman more than a family run hotel where the doorman is practically part of the family and many times really is or gets in by marriage? I really hope you are joking.
Okay, 'nuff said. As much as I enjoy our discussion, I think we've strayed enough for today
@dennisd asked them about github promo, Hello,
Sorry, no, that won't be the case, all credits applied before March 6th 2015 will expire in March 2016. There is no "grandfathered" term being applied to any promo code. I encourage you to activate your account asap in order to use the credits otherwise they will expire next year
Ehm, this is what created the last one as well.
So the Github education pack coupon is an exception?
Nope.