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
@OhMyMy somehow I interpreted your previous post completely different.
Definitely agree with you, +1 to that.
I don't know what AWS did but I didn't ask about price increases in disguise, I asked about undisguised increases. You pay $X/month for some fixed term, and then at the end of the term they say you now have to pay $X+Y to renew the exact same VPS, with no advance warning allowing renewal before the increase. I'd be interested in seeing an example of that, particularly if the plan was offered here on LET.
AWS has the new Lightsail stuff which is cheaper than the old EC2 micro and they still have the free first year Micro fwiw.
Fyi, Leaseweb increases it every year.
Ohhhhh 1) so it's OK when AWS doesn't keep the price recurring but they lower it. It's only the upwards change that's immoral, unethical, insulting and entitlement-busting.
Ohhhhh 2) "It is hereby declared that companies who advertise on LET shall lose the right to set price on renewals".
Let me bold that:
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
and copy paste it 5 times:
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
If all of these "resellers" and clients complain about pricing changes, its because they don't handle their business appropriately.
@willie Lightsail 5/mo comparable EC micro is 4.28 and spot instance is 2.23/mo Hence 5 is greater than both. Hence disguised price increase. 5-2.23 is 2.77 which would pay for 30 gb bandwidth which is more than dev/typical websites use. Therefore price increase for average developer.
Everyone has the right to set prices on renewals, and customers have the right to not like increases (of course they like decreases). Businesses usually find it in their interest to avoid doing stuff that customers don't like. And customers are allowed to set their expectations based on what they're used to seeing in practice, rather than on abstract morality. If they are used to not seeing increases, and they expect not to get them but they get them anyway, then the provider has not met expectations regardless of whether it's their "right".
Leaseweb prices look typical of the DO/Linode/Vultr type of provider. Were they lower before? Did existing users have to pay the higher prices to keep using existing services? I think if they raise prices from what they are now without significant repositioning, they'll stop being competitive even for new services.
Do you have a concrete example of:
1) VPS offer posted here on LET from a respectable provider (respectable = in business for a while, positive recommendations from LET regulars, etc.)
2) price not described/acknowledged as non-recurring in the offer thread
3) users of the plan are later informed that if they want to renew the VPS, they have to pay more, with no advance notice of the increase and no "improvements" to the plan?
Things I've experienced: 1) provider deadpools (Virtwire, Kiloserve) or is acquired by a company that shuts it down (Crissic); 2) Provider keeps prices the same but adversely changes payment terms (BuyVM); 3) Provider shuts down a VPS location but offers prorated refunds and/or migration to another location (several LES, IPXCore); 4) provider stops offering a certain plan but allows existing instances to keep renewing at same price (Ramnode 128MB's, IPXCore 32MB). (added) 5) Provider states in the sale offer that the price is non-recurring so customer knows what to expect (OVH VPS-SSD black friday promo). Increases at renewal that weren't in the original offer are rare or nonexistent for a reason.
AWS spot instances are stated up front to have fluctuating prices and be revocable at will, so they aren't relevant. Micro used to be around $7 so if it's $4.28 now there's been a decrease not an increase (plus you have to pay ridiculous amounts for bw, unlike lightsail).
face it - you can repeat the same things ad nauseum, restrict it to active people on let (whatever that means), restrict it to those that serve the let market, exclude those with DO/Vultr similar pricing. Cut and dice and manipulate this any way you so choose. No contract = no basis for complaints. Run a business on 30 day renewals from supplier and long term commitment/expectations from client = at some point you get burned. Reality 101 - vendors only owe you what is agreed on for the term agreed on - after that you are absolutely, without question, legally morally and any way you want to look at it - ON YOUR OWN. You can move or capitulate to new term- absolutely nothing wrong or immoral or unethical about this. may be shitty pr- dbut that aint the point.
and BuyVM accepts money still. It may not be in the form you have or the method you have available - but I know since it affects you its an adverse change and no good.
BuyVM changed payment terms and then later undid the change, presumably because they found that the change cost them business. That's how the free market works: businesses can exercise their rights, and customers can vote with their feet.
You still have not posted a concrete example of a provider increasing prices on renewal of an existing product. You mentioned Leaseweb but gave no details. You mentioned AWS but your example didn't hold water. You have not even alluded to any LET offer (e.g. MNX makes offers on LET and is in the same market segment as Linode et al).
There is no question to me that Time4vps lost some goodwill in this episode, even though they didn't raise prices on any existing plans. I myself just bought 500GB of storage from another provider at a higher $/TB than Time4vps's non-discounted plan partly because of this, even though I'm happy with the 512GB that I have at Time4vps and plan to keep it.
In a competitive market it is paying customers using standards of their own choosing, not providers and not wannabe moral arbiters such as yourself, who get to decide what is ok and what isn't.
(added)
That IS the point. Companies don't like shitty pr and find it worth their while to avoid practices that attract it. Goodwill counts for something in the business world. And the realistic expectations of customers form around what the companies do and don't do. So the practice that we're talking about is either nonexistent or rare.
Leaseweb never increased prices for current services.
Price increase only for new orders not contract renewals.
That's what we're talking about...
>
It's the other way around. When you buy a vps for A month, the default is that you buy it for a month. What happens NEXT month, is not an option you determine, for the obvious reason that you didn't buy that right.
The provider may let us know that this is a recurrent offer or not. When someone offers recurrent pricing, that's a marketing instrument - it advances forward sales at the cost of inhibiting future increases of the income stream. I - for example - prefer to buy from a sales thread that say "it's a recurrent coupon".
In other words, if it doesn't say "recurrent", it's not. Doesn't require a degree in nuclear physics.
It obviously is an option that I determine. If I don't like the new price I can go somewhere else, and at my sole discretion I can decide that I left in response to what I judge to be a poor business move. And this site (LET) exists partly as a place for people to compare views about the good and bad business moves of providers, which they do. If multiple people think something is a poor move, it results in what you call shitty PR for the provider.
You seem to instead want them to go elsewhere and keep quiet, or change their expectations even if they're experienced customers who are knowledgeable about what the rest of the industry does, but it doesn't work like that.
In practice it usually is, whether it says so or not. I'd be interested in seeing an announcement url or email paste from Leaseweb about their raising prices on an existing instance. Time4vps didn't even do that, but they're getting shitty pr for stopping offering new instances at the old price. You keep saying non-recurrent is "the default" but again, no concrete examples of it actually happening without it being adverted up front.
Leaseweb contract renewals means any customer with current services can renew service when it's expired (contract end) at same price.
As I said price increase only for new orders.
All (normal) providers when offering services without nonrecurring price point that "This price is only for one year". Otherwise it means recurring.
Time4vps are going to deadpool. Probably they will sell it.
Reason is unsustainable pricing in a long term.
They've got some cash by offering 1-2 year prepayment.
Expect after one year service will be heavily limited making it's impossible to use. It's already oversold as hell.
No, no, no. What you can't determine is the offered priced for the next month. What you CAN determine is what you said. And that's MY whole point - the seller determines the price and the customer determines his/her reaction to the offered price.
Just like we criticize providers, we criticize buyers as well.
And that's solely determined by the provider - which is the whole point.
Contract being the key word.
"Otherwise it means recurring" - In what planet?
That's their problem. Why would I care?
While providers all get to make that decision, they observably (apparently including Leaseweb, per @Layer's post) all seem to make it the same way. This is uniform enough that that one could even describe it as a recognized best practice (though of course not a legal or moral duty, which I've never said that it was).
If a provider decides to depart from that pattern (and again, I've seen NOT ONE EXAMPLE of any provider doing that: even your Leaseweb non-example is discredited), they will get flak that tends to have business consequences. You seem to think they are entitled to not receive flak for that, but that would be an unjustified sense of entitlement on their/your part.
Layer might be right about Time4vps deadpooling or selling.
Deadbeef, are you in the hosting business if you don't mind my asking?
Hey @willie - is your salary recurring? do you expect it every month? do you expect it to increase each year? do you expect to never get terminated for lack of work? You expect to have a job each day, you expect to make more each year, you expect to never get terminated. However, shit happens and you can be fired, can be given a job with lower pay, be told to sit in a room 8 hours a day and do nothing. Why can this occur? Even though societal norms dictate they don't- SHIT HAPPENS AND YOU DON'T HAVE A DAMN CONTRACT. Not the employers fault- your fault. Most states your pay can be immediately terminated- yep no 2 weeks notice- just a see ya later. SAME DAMN THING WITH VPS AND NO CONTRACT -they can change whatever the hell they want and what you perceive as norms here and in the vps world are your perceptions and not necessarily the vendors reality.
It is the vendor's reality. They CAN raise prices, but they (almost?) always choose not to, because they know they are subject to market discipline like everyone else. What you are describing does not fly in practice. Fact about business: vendor reality is determined by customers. You don't get to make it up.
Customer isn't employer.
If contract or service has expired and provider didn't mention price change for renewals on order it means (probably) one lost customer.
Why? Providers must give proper notification for price change. Otherwise it means bad business practice and no customer will trust them.
Do you guys remember Vultr offered double ram for free on any vps package? Also much bigger ssd space.
Did they raised price for that vps? Never.
FYI, @layer is the guy who posted that Leaseweb is increasing 3% prices across the board to everyone who bought on 2016. In the same thread, you'll see people saying how they do it like every year. So, I'm not sure if he's trying to make you appear like a bigger fool or if he's as dense.
You seem stupid enough to believe anything you read without checking.
"Entitled to not receive flak". Talk about reversal
You have a right to be upset with anything. That's not contested. What is asserted is that your being upset with that is the pinnacle of stupidity and entitlement.
I am a consumer.
Where is the other post about @Leaseweb by @Layer?
Why is keeping prices of existing plans steady a universal or almost-universal practice, if they can raise prices of insufficiently profitable plans without any consequences?
I had a 32MB OpenVZ plan from IPXCore for 50 cents a month for several years. They never tried to raise the price or ask me to stop renewing, even though the cost of ipv4 addresses rose way above what I was paying for the whole VPS. I finally cancelled it saying I wanted to give the address back, and I'm sure they were happy to get it. But they never hassled me about it while I had it. Any idea why not? I'd like to hear your theory.
Use the search Luke.
A ton of possible reasons, including the one I mentioned in a previous post, like:
...which don't matter at all for my point - which was: the provider decides what the offered renewal price will be, assuming no other arrangement has been previously agreed. The deciding part includes both keeping it the same and changing it.
@deadbeef you're right leaseweb price increase but hey they've informed customers.
%3 vs %30 time4vps increase, amazing
time4vps increase was 100% (price doubled). But it didn't change at all for existing instances.
Yep. And deciding to change it is at best very rare (I'd like to see specifics of the 3% Leaseweb increase). They get to decide, but then they have to live with the consequences of the decision. We both agree they have the right to decide. You seem to think that deciding on an increase should have no consequences. Actual business people apparently know better.
I don't think the 50 cent IPXCore plan was a loss leader. It was profitable or at least sustainable when they offered it. Ipv4 became much more expensive afterwards, so the plan became a money loser. They kept accepting renewals and eventually most of them went away by attrition (maybe some are still around).
I found the Leaseweb thread: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/98136/leaseweb-annual-increase-of-3-for-all-services
It was posted on November 28 and says:
@Layer, do you know if renewals were/are accepted during the 1 month between the post and the date of the increase?
What a bunch of fart mothers.. changing prices and stuff.
time to move to another storage provider