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
LOL, nice legacy @jbiloh ... gonna be remembered as the wannabe WHT Ebeneezer. The big guys did not let him play with, so he invented his own poor mans version.
You should allow icons and blinky shit in topics titles. Will suit this place much more.
However, to be fair, this community is long overdue for some.kind of ending. Becoming a dust hole and empty advertising shell like WHT was the least preferable one but it is what it is now.
Best of luck. Bye.
Will Host Rep users still be allowed to have a link in their signature?
Yes.
Sorry but between your ousting of teamacc and trewq, the love for purple daddy, the unbanning of members who've violated LET rules, the censorship (many incidents have been mentioned right in this thread), and your continued evasiveness to this very fucking post (I still don't see an explanation for why that LET alternatives thread was sunk) none of your words can be taken at face value.
No one has been ousted. All are welcome. @trewq is an administrator here?
If you are talking about RackNerd, they seem to be very popular among the LET audience.
There have been a few cases of folks given second chance. I am a believer in that. If you burn your second chance then you are removed permanently. That has happened.
Come on now.
I believe I've answered everything, or at least tried to. I must have replied to and sent hundreds of messages today. Was something missed? Sometimes I don't reply when people start dropping F bombs.
Ok then.
No, please don't go.
Its only you, who gave more information about netcup sales
jk
Okay, cool. I rarely post offers anyway so I'll let my provider tag expire naturally for now. We're small and $200yr can be spent more effectively, even if it's a small amount.
Make monthly payments an option and I'd pay to promote our crypto month special and maybe some promotional stuff.
You gotta do what you gotta do, I get it. But people like me need to weigh the cost versus the benefit and I think we'll be fine. As a boot strapped business that I built from literally nothing and by working in a machine shop to create die-cast aluminum parts for vehicles, I'm very picky on how we spend money. We "can" afford it, but it doesn't make sense at the rate we post offers or with the sales generated from here since we're not "low end".
Good suggestion regarding the monthly payments. I can see how that would make sense.
While not really the only one, this is no problem anyway. There is another green place... you know? ;-)
Seems like jsg's selective amnesia got to you. Read this, freshen up those memories: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/163091/stepping-down/p1
Yes, but there was a lie stated that Vanilla doesn't support sinking threads; well it does.
Well as far as I'm concerned, the LET alternatives thread is gone. It is censorship, whichever way you put it.
It's not like your actions haven't been deserving of it.
I would very much be behind monthly payments as well. We don't advertise very aggressively (the last post I made was in October) so for us.. It'd be a huge waste for us to get a 6 month package for specials that we only do every few months.
It honestly feels very much like a money grub to me that the minimal period is six months. It seems like this is less of a community more of a "large" company like GoDaddy who doesn't really care about their client base, just the bottom line...
Now if a month to month option is introduced, I could see some use for my company using it for a few months when we need to post offers, but otherwise it'd be a waste for us as well.
Was explained already. Simple error. Was quickly corrected.
I do not understand.
Harsh. Unfair.
I think there's something in between being mad about it and happy about it. I'm happy that the internet is as free as it is, and that if people truly feel that a beloved community is dying, they either already have the friends they need to go out on their own or they're just a vocal minority upset that no one will follow them.
I'm happy that my family feels like I provide for them. I'm happy that my kids are healthy and smart. I'm happy that my parents are our best friends. I'm upset about gas prices trying to threaten the first thing I said I was happy about in this paragraph.
But am I upset about this? Nah. I don't need a provider tag to have community. But I am happy to have a chance to support Jon who, despite being accused of it routinely, has not killed this community.
Just for the record @jbiloh and I are all good. I'm keeping the Administrator role more as a legacy thing to help out when I'm around and provide advise where applicable.
No one really likes change (especially me...) but it genuinely seems like Jon is trying to improve things. The execution of adding the providers fee for sure could have been done better and Jon has admitted that.
We're a resilient community, roll with the changes, provide constructive feedback and let's see where it goes. I think this is just another chapter not the start of a death spiral.
You still work for ColoCrossing and you own LET so.....
Here's how I see it.
The majority of traffic to LET is visitors wanting to purchase cheap hosting, a cheap VPS or a cheap server. The community threads are a side affect of that traffic and you still have the regular posters that keep those threads interesting but I don't think a bulk of the traffic would be visiting to view the community threads.
If you're now introducing a fee to providers to post their ads then you'll no doubt have providers no longer posting ads as they either don't want to pay the fee or can't afford it. The less ads that you have, the less traffic and thus the less community threads. Slowly this forum will end up like WHT because they basically did the same thing.
For anyone who says that LET is providing us with the service, take this into account. In Australia, hosting definitely isn't cheap. Rack prices in decent datacenters isn't cheap and bandwidth is actually quite expensive. In order to get customers from LET, we often have to offer promotional deals where we discount our products by up to 80% for a few months hoping that our users renew after the promotion but that rarely happens. We also offered $50 of credit for just $5 a year or two ago to get customers from LET.
I've got nothing against those users that don't renew after taking us up on our offers, if you see a good deal, take it. I do have something against LET though due to having to pay to post these ads from now on. We're offering our services at a loss to bring traffic to LET and thus they make the revenue from ads. Why would I now pay LET so that I can help bring in traffic whilst running at a loss for some of the ads.
Places like Rack Nerd obviously are fine with this as they get a good deal from LET but for providers from other countries and providers that don't have a lot of money, it's definitely not a good deal.
Anyway, as thanks for all of the support from the LET users over the years, I'll see if we can come up with a killer deal before our provider tag is stripped
Cheers,
QC
Who cares what I say, but I'm going to say it anyways.
I think this should be discussed at length, months even, to lay out the plan, to share the mission, vision and goals for the platform, gather opinions, and then set a target or a tentative date in future for the actual rollout/implementation.
This not only gives providers the opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns, but this also gives them ample amount of time to also think and plan themselves, or even to "re-strategize" or re-structure their businesses accordingly should they consider wanting to accept and commit to this.
Just my 2 cents.
Change mine to 'Host Rep'. Can Host Rep tag users comment in threads when end users are requesting stuff?
LOL. $200/yr when a seller is barely making anything on each sale from this forum? Why not take my business out to the backyard and shoot it as well?
You expect low margins and nownyoubexoevt a cut from that low margin as well?
Thanks but no thanks. Good luck keeping this forum alive.
Haven't been here for a long time. I get why you're doing this @jbiloh but sending me an invoice out of the blue for $100 and an overdue reminder 24hrs later when I haven't been here for years or know what's going on is a bit silly.
If you can fix that and realise it was a silly thing to do, I can go back to not being here.
Hope all well with you JB.
Yes. I do agree, monthly payment option is better, especially for host who don't post offer always.
This is unfortunate for the general user base. Luckily we have another green alternative. Best of luck.
You posted one offer thread one time, last year, with a dedicated server that is above the threshold for impulse buy (a very key threshold for LET). That kind of statement would be more powerful if coming from someone who seems to understand what people here want and routinely attempts to go after it.
Are you really upset by this and, if so, why haven't you been interested in trying to make money on LET until now?
Maybe it's worth looking at who is complaining and how it might actually impact their activity here. It's no secret that on the internet people love to complain, a lot, about everything. Some scrutiny toward the value of complaints seems warranted to me. The people who complained the most about MXroute on Twitter were never even prospective customers, for example.
Easy because LET offers are not scalable easily.
Having 30-50 servers to sell, once sold at the ridiculously low prices it takes time to recoup the cost and then put in purchase order for more servers and then get more servers, set them up and then comes marketing. I cannot sell something of which I havnt even been able to recoup the cost. And now this added cost. It's just not worth the time and money at this point.
And personally I don't think it's just about me. My comment goes for everyone who is a low end provider.
Why should your comment be about every low end provider? Is everyone here truly buying expensive servers and selling them for barely any profit, and expecting that profit to fund any further expansion of the business? That doesn't sound anything like providers here to me. You stretch those servers by overselling VPS and shared hosting, that's what a provider here does. Then, maybe you can afford to drop a cheap line of dedis for additional exposure.
But those servers weren't cheap at all by this market segment's standards. A dedi over $30/m here is a hard sell. You gotta watch reactions to offers here and try different things to see what sticks. You made one offer and then disappeared for months until this moment, that should be noteworthy context for the content of your complaint.
I mean you no disrespect, I just don't think you're really into selling here in the first place. I wonder how many other complaints might look the same.
So just to get it right. You want to say that people here should sell dedicated for $30/mo while paying $200/yr fees for the opportunity to be able to sell the server at $30/mo which already is a hard sell.
Just because I didn't post more than 1 offer doesn't discount me as a member of the community or a provider.
Yes. If you can't figure out how to make those numbers work, you're not alone. Plenty of hosts don't post here because they can't figure out how to make the numbers work. They feel like they're quality and the hosts here aren't, so they can't compete on price because they're about quality. Then, they have the same amount of employees and the same uptime figures as the hosts here for the next decade. They think they're better, they're not, they're just not bold enough to make the leap and trade some of their excess decisions for more marketable ones.
You can get an old server on eBay for dirt cheap. If you shop around, you can get cheap power and bandwidth. In some locations, single and dual power will produce the same results consistently (making dual power an investment that's really more about "feel good" than real life metrics). You can host raspberry Pi's for pennies. You can oversell containers massively. The sky is the limit for shared hosting per U for a seasoned admin.
There are so many ways to go after the market here. People aren't going to buy because they feel sorry for what you paid for those servers or that you need X dollars for ROI. Many will stand up and defend you for trying to run a sustainable business on high quality hardware. They won't place an order, they'll just feel compelled to argue on your behalf. You have to know these things to do well here, it's just how it is. It takes trial and error to get it right, don't blow your wad on the first try, it'll really cripple your attempts.
That you only posted one offer last year is so incredibly relevant, you can't just declare that it isn't. You made a complaint here about low margins and used the words "my business" in a way that implies that this could be the killing blow to it. That's a really powerful post you made, it's extremely relevant to notice that you have been a larger threat to your business on LET than anything else has.
Again this isn't about disrespecting you. It's about taking a comment that reads powerfully, and dissecting it. Just one post I took and dissected because the words made me feel something. My findings completely changed how I read the post. I have no desire to see you fail, and would gladly converse privately to help you find a way to reel in this market segment. From where I sit, as things are presently, I don't see the topic of this thread having any impact on your business. I'm wondering if I'd find the same if I dissected others similarly.
Edit: I want to add, I will pay the $100 for you for putting up with me calling out your comment, if you're serious about growing your business here. I'm not critiquing your comment because I just like to be confrontational, and I'll show that by offering a hand.
@jbiloh
It's a detail, but it may be worth clarifying how a participant without a provider tag who wants to be a provider on LET should proceed.
Edit: Never mind, I see: if they successfully apply for a provider tag, then they get a host rep tag, which is upgraded to a provider tag if they pay.
Same boat here, Offering services here in Australia is quite hard, and we offer in AUD currency, which for the rest of the world is a great deal. However us paying LET to advertise deals that we already take time to prepare and work out is crazy. Unfortunately we will have to have our tag stripped
Its quite crazy that lots of people seem to have a problem with paying like 200 usd/year for the opportunity to advertise. It just goes to show how small the numbers/margins are for some "providers".
Having had the opportunity to potentially buy out some businesses that also advertise on various forums including this one - the actual numbers in terms of client counts rarely match up with the claims on the website. The same is true for all sorts of things such as owned hardware/datacenters/eqipment.... or references for companies they claim to provide services to/reviews left by clients. The marketing/perception often does not match up with reality.
Reviewing the financial numbers sent in for those "opportunities" its often quite shocking how someone i that is perceived as a success is in reality is a lot smaller. Often they are barely breaking even. Some operate at a loss until they decide to "throw in the towel". There's also a fair amount of "providers" around where its just a website and reselling someone else's services at an incredibly small margin.
I think that the trap a lot of "startup" providers falling into is trying to compete with those businesses. While failing to find unique spots for themselves in a rather competitive market.
Ultimately we may end up with a scenario, where a fee for the provider tag may be beneficial.
Businesses having a sufficient margins and the ability to generate enough revenue based on the advertisements will likely not care a lot about a fee.
Businesses that are mostly smoke and mirrors will potentially pick it up, but fall apart/fail faster, as this just increases their operational burden. We may at the same time also see some more unsustainable offers in hopes of quick cash followed a crash with reality.
Those are just some of my thoughts on the topic.