The $7/Year "Technical Eviction": DediRock's CEO says I'm "too advanced" for them

lowendclient · February 20

@forest said:
That's not the reason they gave when they kicked him out, though.

That's why after that, DediRock replied "I did respond to your ticket with what I believe is the best solution for now" refers to terminating OP's contract in the ticket. They just put it implicitly on LET.

lovelyserver · February 20

@DediRock please double the bandwidth and add ipv6. And any other bonus is welcome.

Order Number: 3661153888

Great provider, great price, excellent quality for some projects.

angstrom · February 20

@lovelyserver said:
@DediRock please double the bandwidth and add ipv6. And any other bonus is welcome.

Order Number: 3661153888

Great provider, great price, excellent quality for some projects.

Perhaps post this in the right thread? (This isn't the right thread)

jsg · February 20

As I just saw yet another request for under $5/year ...

a business, any business, must generate profit in the long run.
nodes have costs, even "free" nodes (like old hardware with a book-value of $0)
running nodes incurs costs, e.g. bandwidth, electrical power, etc.
running nodes as a business also incurs HR costs, e.g. support staff, tech hands, administration

Due to the first point (business -> profit) WE, the customers, pay all those costs plus any profit!

HOW can a provider make a profit with super-cheap VPSs? Simple and usually ugly: put more VPSs on a node aka over-selling. Exception: "loss leaders" that is, "promos" meant to lure customers in, gain visibility, etc., for which evidently decent quality (and no overselling) is needed.
About the only factor that is favourable for a provider is that most customers do not use ALL their resources, in particular vCPU, bandwidth, and traffic volume. Sometimes that is where some profit can be made.

Human resources are among the most expensive, hence every ticket not created saves cost, every short response saves cost, and any ticket requiring know-how (beyond the everyday level) plus explanations plus (God forbid) multiple to/fro is expensive. Ergo knowledge bases and increasingly ai (which honestly is good enough for many, maybe most tickets).

TL;DR IMO you are begging for a crappy VM and/or bad support when you ask for and/or buy a super-cheap VPS! Again: Exception some promos.

So ask yourself: would you rather have a small but decent (incl. support) VPS for $15/yr or a crappy one for $7/yr?

ralf · February 20

Crappy one for $7/y (but the non crappy one for $7/y are even better!)

DediRock · February 20

@xvps said:
The endless discussion:
A guy with Western EU business ethics trying to explain to a MAGA hillbilly why an MJJ’s expectations for a $7/year service are reasonable and that a contract is binding.

This is a very good comment

lovelyserver · February 20

My point (posting an order number) is I wanted to prove, without usual words, that DediRock has wonderful offers and it's the time to stop those arguments and continue our projects, carry on. That was my point.

But if I was writing with these words, someone else would quote, reply, say something... And the arguments pro and contra will continue forever.

In my opinion, posting an order number is an original way to position myself on DediRock's favour, side.

I know it's not the right thread. It's just original way to say my opinion.

And a $7/Y VPS it's not a dedicated server. Some individuals have too high expectations from these offers and when something happens, they get angrythey feel hurt, complain against the owner.... Bro, if you want high specs, maybe it's better to realise the machines limits for some projects.

DediRock · February 20

@lowendclient said:

[@forest said]

They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

DediRock chose to kick OP out, had nothing to do with the ticket, but was because of this reply:
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735322/#Comment_4735322

I don’t know which AI model OP used, but the conversation comes quite rude.
"extremely disappointed"
"This is unacceptable"
"for a simple configuration toggle on your side"
Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P.

I don't think the boss would be happy seeing such a response. To protect his employees (or outsourcing staff), it's reasonable he chose to decline OP as customer.

As for the contract, it should be discussed in another topic, according to the TOS.

Hey @lowendclient,

Thank you for this. I can always admit when we can do better, and after every situation, I write new company policy so the same issue does not happen again. Regarding the technical bugs, we actually just fixed the AES issue, and I wrote a new internal policy to make sure those checks are always included. Next Wednesday, February 25th, will definitely have the upgrades to fix all of the others. I actually thanked the customer for pointing these things out.

In terms of the communication mentioned above, it does play a factor in our decisions as it can impact the staff (though I’m okay with experiencing it personally). However, when I run into that sort of communication, I think it's best to just go ahead and refund the customer—especially if they are upset with the service and I do not have an immediate fix. I don't think it's fair to hold onto their money, and from the communication, I felt the customer was upset and there was no immediate fix.

I’ve had situations where I offer a refund and the customer accepts, and it's no big deal. I’ve also had cases where the situation can carry out for a longer time, so I do have to take it case-by-case on what's best for the staff and the customer. We were able to fix the OS icon fairly fast, but the other fixes were a bit more involved. One is going to require backups, etc., so we did not want to rush it.

Overall, new procedures and steps will be taken from this experience. I appreciate your communication, as well as everyone else's here. I’d say June of 2025 was when I really committed to making this business go; I have learned a ton since then and continue to do so. It’s also been very fun!

Thanks.

NerdUno · February 20

It doesn't appear that issuing the refund was the primary complaint. This clown shut down their VPS and kicked them off their platform because of a simple request and explaining how to fix it. Probably best to move on because dedirock won't be around long anyway.

DediRock · February 20

@forest said:
This is really disappointing from DediRock.

There have been a few providers that have accidentally kept -cpu qemu in, but they all switched it to host (or to their lowest-common model) as soon as I asked. Screwing up by turning off CPU features is not a big deal, but doubling down and kicking out the customer for asking for it is serious, in my opinion.

Hey @forest,

Yeah, it was a new one for me. My Sys Admin did check all other nodes and, from what I can tell, there were no other issues with them. We now have checks in place so it does not happen again.

I can see your viewpoint we have had many customers in the past point out mistakes, and we always do our best to address them. We just got the fix in, though, so that is handled.

Thanks!

DediRock · February 20

@zed said:
I think it's just part of the business plan, any friction gets a refund. Keeps the reviews positive and any negativity can be waved off since customer got their money back, what's to complain about?

Pretty brilliant especially due to the area of lowend pool he's harvesting with $7 deals.

I tease @DediRock quite a bit but I fully expect to see him around down the road perhaps positioned in a similar fashion as a lowend giant we all know and love.

Haha @zed, you know that is kind of the general idea. I have found there is going to be a percentage of cases where, for whatever reason, I won't be able to help whether it’s my fault, a failed process, etc. So, I am just willing to experience threads when they pop up, and what customers have too communicate.

But I definitely take the fixes and stuff seriously; it does improve the service.

Noooooo.... you tease me! It's gotta be either you or @beanman109 who have dished out the best jokes toward me.

This was a good one:

https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/213469/dedirocks-ultimate-guide-to-perfumes-and-deodorants-for-women-finding-your-signature-scent#latest

And I'm not sure if this one was aimed at me or not...

https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/209468/if-you-had-a-piece-of-string-how-long-would-it-be#latest

Well, thank you very much for that. We are at about 70 nodes now. I think we had 3 at this time last year? The plan is to be at 250 by year-end, so hopefully I can make it! Just have to keep learning.

The Path To 250™

DediRock · February 20

@ScreenReader said:
embarrassing. didn't even had aes-ni when other providers have it wide open up to avx/avx2.
this is why you don't buy servers from a perfume shop.

reguards.

@ScreenReader it kind of was

Double The Fragrance Granted™

DediRock · February 20

@dbadude said:
no bad words about dadyrock!

that would be nice It's okay though very good thread here and conversation.

DediRock · February 20

@Neoon said:

Thanks @neoon

1265578519 · February 20

@DediRock said:

@lowendclient said:

[@forest said]

They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

DediRock chose to kick OP out, had nothing to do with the ticket, but was because of this reply:
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735322/#Comment_4735322

I don’t know which AI model OP used, but the conversation comes quite rude.
"extremely disappointed"
"This is unacceptable"
"for a simple configuration toggle on your side"
Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P.

I don't think the boss would be happy seeing such a response. To protect his employees (or outsourcing staff), it's reasonable he chose to decline OP as customer.

As for the contract, it should be discussed in another topic, according to the TOS.

Hey @lowendclient,

Thank you for this. I can always admit when we can do better, and after every situation, I write new company policy so the same issue does not happen again. Regarding the technical bugs, we actually just fixed the AES issue, and I wrote a new internal policy to make sure those checks are always included. Next Wednesday, February 25th, will definitely have the upgrades to fix all of the others. I actually thanked the customer for pointing these things out.

In terms of the communication mentioned above, it does play a factor in our decisions as it can impact the staff (though I’m okay with experiencing it personally). However, when I run into that sort of communication, I think it's best to just go ahead and refund the customer—especially if they are upset with the service and I do not have an immediate fix. I don't think it's fair to hold onto their money, and from the communication, I felt the customer was upset and there was no immediate fix.

I’ve had situations where I offer a refund and the customer accepts, and it's no big deal. I’ve also had cases where the situation can carry out for a longer time, so I do have to take it case-by-case on what's best for the staff and the customer. We were able to fix the OS icon fairly fast, but the other fixes were a bit more involved. One is going to require backups, etc., so we did not want to rush it.

Overall, new procedures and steps will be taken from this experience. I appreciate your communication, as well as everyone else's here. I’d say June of 2025 was when I really committed to making this business go; I have learned a ton since then and continue to do so. It’s also been very fun!

Thanks.

Hi @DediRock,

I just logged in and checked lscpu. I can confirm that the AES-NI flag is now present. It’s good to see that the issue I reported was valid and has been fixed for the benefit of all users.

Regarding the account status: but now the fix is live—how should we proceed if I want to keep the service?

Will you be issuing a new invoice for me to pay again?
Or will you let me keep the remaining months as a courtesy for identifying the and helping improve your "new company policy"?

I’ve already migrated my main data, but I’m curious to see how you handle this now that the technical barrier is gone.

unsafetypin · February 20

@jsg said:
As I just saw yet another request for under $5/year ...

a business, any business, must generate profit in the long run.

nodes have costs, even "free" nodes (like old hardware with a book-value of $0)

running nodes incurs costs, e.g. bandwidth, electrical power, etc.

running nodes as a business also incurs HR costs, e.g. support staff, tech hands, administration

Due to the first point (business -> profit) WE, the customers, pay all those costs plus any profit!

HOW can a provider make a profit with super-cheap VPSs? Simple and usually ugly: put more VPSs on a node aka over-selling. Exception: "loss leaders" that is, "promos" meant to lure customers in, gain visibility, etc., for which evidently decent quality (and no overselling) is needed.
About the only factor that is favourable for a provider is that most customers do not use ALL their resources, in particular vCPU, bandwidth, and traffic volume. Sometimes that is where some profit can be made.

Human resources are among the most expensive, hence every ticket not created saves cost, every short response saves cost, and any ticket requiring know-how (beyond the everyday level) plus explanations plus (God forbid) multiple to/fro is expensive. Ergo knowledge bases and increasingly ai (which honestly is good enough for many, maybe most tickets).

TL;DR IMO you are begging for a crappy VM and/or bad support when you ask for and/or buy a super-cheap VPS! Again: Exception some promos.

So ask yourself: would you rather have a small but decent (incl. support) VPS for $15/yr or a crappy one for $7/yr?

ah blame the customer? then the provider can eat shit, its the providers fault for selling unprofitable SKUs not the customers fault for purchasing said product. its not my job to make sure someone can profit off of their decision to sell something at bottom dollar and then claim being incompetent comes with the low price. what the hell? make better decisions or be up front that you offer 0 technical support for certain products. Example: Hosthatch black friday sales where Hosthatch is very clear about the lower tier of support. I still buy these products and know exactly what I'm getting.

DediRock · February 20

@1265578519 said:

@DediRock said:

@lowendclient said:

[@forest said]

They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

DediRock chose to kick OP out, had nothing to do with the ticket, but was because of this reply:
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735322/#Comment_4735322

I don’t know which AI model OP used, but the conversation comes quite rude.
"extremely disappointed"
"This is unacceptable"
"for a simple configuration toggle on your side"
Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P.

I don't think the boss would be happy seeing such a response. To protect his employees (or outsourcing staff), it's reasonable he chose to decline OP as customer.

As for the contract, it should be discussed in another topic, according to the TOS.

Hey @lowendclient,

Thank you for this. I can always admit when we can do better, and after every situation, I write new company policy so the same issue does not happen again. Regarding the technical bugs, we actually just fixed the AES issue, and I wrote a new internal policy to make sure those checks are always included. Next Wednesday, February 25th, will definitely have the upgrades to fix all of the others. I actually thanked the customer for pointing these things out.

In terms of the communication mentioned above, it does play a factor in our decisions as it can impact the staff (though I’m okay with experiencing it personally). However, when I run into that sort of communication, I think it's best to just go ahead and refund the customer—especially if they are upset with the service and I do not have an immediate fix. I don't think it's fair to hold onto their money, and from the communication, I felt the customer was upset and there was no immediate fix.

I’ve had situations where I offer a refund and the customer accepts, and it's no big deal. I’ve also had cases where the situation can carry out for a longer time, so I do have to take it case-by-case on what's best for the staff and the customer. We were able to fix the OS icon fairly fast, but the other fixes were a bit more involved. One is going to require backups, etc., so we did not want to rush it.

Overall, new procedures and steps will be taken from this experience. I appreciate your communication, as well as everyone else's here. I’d say June of 2025 was when I really committed to making this business go; I have learned a ton since then and continue to do so. It’s also been very fun!

Thanks.

Hi @DediRock,

I just logged in and checked lscpu. I can confirm that the AES-NI flag is now present. It’s good to see that the issue I reported was valid and has been fixed for the benefit of all users.

Regarding the account status: but now the fix is live—how should we proceed if I want to keep the service?

Will you be issuing a new invoice for me to pay again?
Or will you let me keep the remaining months as a courtesy for identifying the and helping improve your "new company policy"?

I’ve already migrated my main data, but I’m curious to see how you handle this now that the technical barrier is gone.

Hey @1265578519,

Yeah, we just did the reboot, took a second to get it fixed, but it's all set now. I think we got the Debian icon all settled as well, so that is good can you please confirm you see it on your end? Thank you for that; the problems were valid. Next Wednesday, the other issues should be all settled.

Well, what do you think is the best path forward? I think this is a perfect opportunity to discuss how we can communicate with one another. What do you think?

So, you're using AI to make responses? You know, I have been accused of using AI a few times myself! @zed

Maybe this was just a misunderstanding, which I can always take ownership for—no big deal. However, maybe we can say the tone of the communication was not ideal:

"Extremely disappointed"

"This is unacceptable"

"For a simple configuration toggle on your side"

"Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P."

From your viewpoint, it’s the AI, right?

I think if we can just put some more communication between us on that point, I am totally cool continuing with you. The account and server are still active, and was never turned off as you know.

I have a good feeling this will all work out well.

Thanks!

DediRock · February 20

@unsafetypin said:

@jsg said:
As I just saw yet another request for under $5/year ...

a business, any business, must generate profit in the long run.

nodes have costs, even "free" nodes (like old hardware with a book-value of $0)

running nodes incurs costs, e.g. bandwidth, electrical power, etc.

running nodes as a business also incurs HR costs, e.g. support staff, tech hands, administration

Due to the first point (business -> profit) WE, the customers, pay all those costs plus any profit!

HOW can a provider make a profit with super-cheap VPSs? Simple and usually ugly: put more VPSs on a node aka over-selling. Exception: "loss leaders" that is, "promos" meant to lure customers in, gain visibility, etc., for which evidently decent quality (and no overselling) is needed.
About the only factor that is favourable for a provider is that most customers do not use ALL their resources, in particular vCPU, bandwidth, and traffic volume. Sometimes that is where some profit can be made.

Human resources are among the most expensive, hence every ticket not created saves cost, every short response saves cost, and any ticket requiring know-how (beyond the everyday level) plus explanations plus (God forbid) multiple to/fro is expensive. Ergo knowledge bases and increasingly ai (which honestly is good enough for many, maybe most tickets).

TL;DR IMO you are begging for a crappy VM and/or bad support when you ask for and/or buy a super-cheap VPS! Again: Exception some promos.

So ask yourself: would you rather have a small but decent (incl. support) VPS for $15/yr or a crappy one for $7/yr?

ah blame the customer? then the provider can eat shit, its the providers fault for selling unprofitable SKUs not the customers fault for purchasing said product. its not my job to make sure someone can profit off of their decision to sell something at bottom dollar and then claim being incompetent comes with the low price. what the hell? make better decisions or be up front that you offer 0 technical support for certain products. Example: Hosthatch black friday sales where Hosthatch is very clear about the lower tier of support. I still buy these products and know exactly what I'm getting.

That is really good idea to say up front about maybe what to expect on the support side?

I am def going to do some updates on things. Thx for that @unsafetypin

The Path To 250™

jsg · February 20

@unsafetypin said:

@jsg said:
As I just saw yet another request for under $5/year ...

a business, any business, must generate profit in the long run.

nodes have costs, even "free" nodes (like old hardware with a book-value of $0)

running nodes incurs costs, e.g. bandwidth, electrical power, etc.

running nodes as a business also incurs HR costs, e.g. support staff, tech hands, administration

Due to the first point (business -> profit) WE, the customers, pay all those costs plus any profit!

HOW can a provider make a profit with super-cheap VPSs? Simple and usually ugly: put more VPSs on a node aka over-selling. Exception: "loss leaders" that is, "promos" meant to lure customers in, gain visibility, etc., for which evidently decent quality (and no overselling) is needed.
About the only factor that is favourable for a provider is that most customers do not use ALL their resources, in particular vCPU, bandwidth, and traffic volume. Sometimes that is where some profit can be made.

Human resources are among the most expensive, hence every ticket not created saves cost, every short response saves cost, and any ticket requiring know-how (beyond the everyday level) plus explanations plus (God forbid) multiple to/fro is expensive. Ergo knowledge bases and increasingly ai (which honestly is good enough for many, maybe most tickets).

TL;DR IMO you are begging for a crappy VM and/or bad support when you ask for and/or buy a super-cheap VPS! Again: Exception some promos.

So ask yourself: would you rather have a small but decent (incl. support) VPS for $15/yr or a crappy one for $7/yr?

ah blame the customer? then the provider can eat shit, its the providers fault for selling unprofitable SKUs not the customers fault for purchasing said product. its not my job to make sure someone can profit off of their decision to sell something at bottom dollar and then claim being incompetent comes with the low price. what the hell? make better decisions or be up front that you offer 0 technical support for certain products. Example: Hosthatch black friday sales where Hosthatch is very clear about the lower tier of support. I still buy these products and know exactly what I'm getting.

[image]

I neither blamed anyone nor did I say that there are no exceptions. But I guess facts just aren't your thing ...

TimboJones · February 20

@forest said:

@TimboJones said: If Dedirock realizes he cannot deliver the service expected

He can. It's actually utterly trivial, assuming any CPU older than Pentium 4.

Features from an example host with CPU in host mode

fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good amd_lbr_v2 nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate pti ssbd mba perfmon_v2 ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid cqm rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap avx512ifma clflushopt clwb avx512cd sha_ni avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local user_shstk avx512_bf16 clzero irperf xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd cppc arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold vgif x2avic v_spec_ctrl vnmi avx512vbmi umip pku ospke avx512_vbmi2 gfni vaes vpclmulqdq avx512_vnni avx512_bitalg avx512_vpopcntdq rdpid overflow_recov succor smca flush_l1d amd_lbr_pmc_freeze

Features from an example host without CPU in host mode

fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx lm constant_tsc nopl xtopology cpuid tsc_known_freq pni cx16 x2apic hypervisor lahf_lm cpuid_fault pti

You overestimate what Dedirock is capable of doing, not what an experienced operator is capable of doing.

alfatarsos · February 20

Though the tone is not great, the OP is right on this one. AES-NI even benefits the provider because otherwise you are having significant CPU load over something as simple and normal as browsing. It confuses me why it wasn't activated in the first place.

It then gets even more confusing why was the OP terminated for requesting a function to be activated and due to expectations on the technical competence of the provider he purchased. Yes, the tone is far from ideal on the messages, but the customer is technically right, 100% right. Why on Earth would the service be terminated and a customer refunded on something that takes like 15 seconds to activate and benefits both parties?

It's also a valid justification from the OP that he used Google Gemini. The amount of times Gemini tends to be excessively bright on the communication is actually quite a lot, from my experience. Another great reason not to use Gemini.

I mean, if it gets a customer having 100% vCPU usage to 20% vCPU usage isn't it something great for everyone? For the customer that gets more performance and more room to use the product, and for the provider that gets more out of a shared resource? What on Earth was this technical management of a customer?

And after complaining there's suddenly a verification for AES-NI and everyone has it... except the customer who has now gone without a promotional service and mentioned that first? Could not anyone be bothered to see global hypervisor definitions on the servers before they answered the customer? It's not fair for him.

This is the type of behaviour that unnecessarily gives a provider a bad feedback. No need for all of this merry-round, in my opinion. The provider should have seen this before.

Roxyrex · February 20

@1265578519 said:
Hi LET,

I think I’ve just achieved a new milestone in the LowEnd world: Being force-refunded and evicted for fixing my own performance issues.

I recently picked up a $7/year VPS from DediRock (@DediRock ). Soon after, I noticed the CPU was screaming at 100% usage during basic web traffic. After a quick technical audit (perf and cpuinfo), the cause was obvious: AES-NI flags were missing in their KVM config, forcing the CPU to do software emulation for every SSL request.

The Support Cycle:

Me: "Hey, the AES-NI flag is missing. Can you enable passthrough? Here is the perf report."

Lead Support: "We can move you to a new node, but you'll lose all your data and your IP."

Me (The Workaround): I didn't want to migrate, so I optimized the web server myself. I switched to ChaCha20-Poly1305 (no hardware acceleration needed).

The Result: CPU usage dropped from 100% to 20%. I was happy. The server was stable.

The "CEO" Solution:
Instead of saying "Glad you fixed it," Danny Dahl (CEO) issued a forced full refund of my $7 and basically told me to get out.

Direct quote from the CEO:

"As you said you are looking for a partner that can support your technical level, I honestly don't think we are that company for you right now."

The TL;DR:
Apparently, if you know how to debug a server and optimize your cipher suites, you are a liability to DediRock. They won't fix a KVM flag—they'll just throw your $7 back at you and cancel your service.

Proof of my workaround (20% CPU on a $7 box without AES-NI):
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/212270/1000-cash-prize-bong/p28

Current Status: Evicted.
I’m now looking for a new home for my $7/year budget. If anyone has recommendations for a provider that:

Isn't scared of users who know what a CPU flag is.

Actually knows how to configure hardware passthrough.

Won't "Refund & Kick" you for being "too technical."

Let me know!

I think if you would simply throw an debug™ optimization™ you would have found a common language.
Anyway in my opinion full refund for 7$ is also something that should be kinda respected in the community.

TimboJones · February 20

@layer7 said:

@TimboJones said:

You don't seem to get it either if those are the comparisons you think are similar. Dedirock is supplying an ongoing service, not a physical good the customer has in their hands. The rest of your rant about rich people and employees has no relevance here and makes no sense.

If Dedirock realizes he cannot deliver the service expected, a refund is exactly what is expected. He's admitting he can't come through on the service and in no way did he say the customer violated the contract. Most likely, he doesn't think he'll even have CPU passthrough next week, so why keep keep a customer that is reporting extremely poor performance that he doesn't (won't?) have a solution for? He didn't destroy the server and no data was lost.

It's barely different than buying something and getting a refund because the item is out of stock. The provider can't deliver. Full. Stop.

What kind of person thinks contracts are handcuffs with no outs?

You just work for layer7, right, you're not the business owner who has to account for costs and profits?

Edit: also, your car comparison happens ALL THE TIME. My sister in law gets a new vehicle every 4 years or so. On two occasions, she bought cars that had issues that went back to the car dealership multiple times (month+), including replacing it and having an Engineer fly from Ottawa to Vancouver to investigate new model issues. Once they realized they don't know the root cause and it's not solved and think it'll still happen, they gave her full refund. Two times, two different car brands. (I know one was a Kia, I don't know the other brand).

Hi,

i am sorry, i was obviously not able to work out the core.

This is not about hosting and not about 7 USD.

You should learn how forums and discussion threads work, then.

Its purely about the fact that one contract partner is allowed to decide if a contract is valid yes or no.

This violates the fundamentals of any contract in this world. It does not matter if you buy hosting, a car or a banana.

And yes, contracts ARE handcuffs with defined outs. Thats the whole purpose of their existence. They give security to both parties that is supposed to ensure that every party of a contract HAS TO FOLLOW the contract and can not just single handily decide to reverse it.

In our example here we have a yearly contract. Yearly not "until one party decide its not interesting anymore". As much as the customer can not just ask for a refund, the provider can not just decide to to reverse the whole contract. I dont know what country you are located in, but probably also in your country a deal is a deal is a deal. And thats it.

You haven't demonstrated its not interested anymore. He explicitly explained at the time why he refunded it. THAT is his valid reason to nullify the contract. This is normal. Refunding WITHOUT providing the valid reason didn't happen would help your argument, but he did.

And since i was not able to be clear with this too:

In your example your sister had issues with her cars and the dealer gave up at some point and gave her a full refund.

The core point you did not mention. Was your sister FORCED to give back the car? Means, did the car dealer decide, independent of the will of your sister to just revert the contract?

Yes. I thought that was pretty clear.

I can honestly not imagine that. Most probably the car dealer OFFERED the reversal, which is perfectly customer service. And your sister AGREED to it. And thats how things are done.

That's your lack of experience, don't project.

If ALL parties of a contract agree to do what ever, then of course its all fine and valid. But if just ONE party agree and the other disagree ( or not even asked like in our example here ) then its just pure contract violation.

And to give you some background: I am the idiot here in this company. Means the owner. I am doing this here in a professional way ( means real legally registered, tax paying company ), without another side line job, without mum or dad, without being a reseller or what ever since 2003 with my own hardware, RIPE membership and alll the other fancy rat's tails that comes with it.

And thats why i already wrote in another thread that a company has no economical interest in a customer paying 7 USD for a VPS in a year and that best practice is NOT to write a ticket.

But that is honestly the problem of the provider, if he offer something ( VPS, Banana, car, ... ) that is calculated in a way that it only works under specific conditions ( no support, no uptime, 50% packetloss, only on monday's that come after a friday, what ever ) -- which are NOT communicated to the customer ( alias part of the contract ).

IF you as a provider write into your offer:

" Subject to cancellation any time through the provider if the provider just feels like it "

This is the issue. You're being obtuse about the valid reason to refund.

Then hey, perfect thing! It was clearly communicated that you as customer are fully in the hands of the mood and will of the provider. If you as customer accept this bullet in exachange for this price, go for it! Perfect contract, all went fine.

But thats alllllllll just not the case here.

From what we have been told from both parties:

-> Customer ordered and paid a VPS for 1 year.
-> Customer complained ( too much )
-> Customer got kicked before 1 year against his will, without his agreement because the provider made the decision that its not fitting

Wth are you talking about? The customer explicitly stated the poor performance in the first place. Dedirock agreed secondly.

Clear contract violation. If you see that another way, then you are at least more provider friendly than i am. If i have a contract, i want to be able to rely on it ( thats what contracts were made for and thats why you can go to the court and enforce a contract ).

He gave refund and notice. What do you think a judge would do in such a case? The provider wasn't pulling a fast one where he had a ready to go solution he just didn't want to share. He was technically illiterate of this change.

Its not a summer host dilly-dilly fun show. Thats business. Thats serious. ( At least supposed to be in my humble opinion ).

Yes, this is normal in business.

225thinker · February 20

This guy is going to be a cover boy on Wired one day, crowing about how he built an acquired company entirely using AI, with the disgruntled customers inadvertently teaching him everything he (and his AI) needed to learn on "The Path To 250™"

I won't be contributing.

Now thank me, bot. And let me know when you get that ® issued.

Kodomu · February 20

@Ssre said:

@default said:
Whatever. You get my point. It is a setting which was not enabled, therefore limiting the customer.

It was a misconfiguration by the host's own admission - they were planning to fix it next week. Fixing it would massively reduce CPU usage for HTTPS/encrypted traffic, thus reduce CPU load across their nodes, making it better for all of their customers, even those without workloads that make use of AES-NI.

The host should be thanking them for pointing it out, not evicting them.

I agree with @forest as usual here, this is virtualisation 101. It is very surprising to me that someone sets up a hosting company not knowing about these things already. I am not here to attempt to slander other hosting companies as I think that's bad practice, but I would certainly want to ask if @DediRock has the sufficient experience required to set this stuff up and if not I would propose that they get someone experienced enough to look over everything.

It is again something to say though, that at $7/yr, support is effectively not worth it and one ticket is already too many to be sustainable at that price. I can see why OP was refunded even if I don't agree with it.

chorong · February 20

At least it’s getting fixed across all their host nodes now.

Good learning experience for @DediRock too, but perhaps a little too eager on the refund in this case

forest · February 20

@jsg said: Human resources are among the most expensive, hence every ticket not created saves cost, every short response saves cost, and any ticket requiring know-how (beyond the everyday level) plus explanations plus (God forbid) multiple to/fro is expensive. Ergo knowledge bases and increasingly ai (which honestly is good enough for many, maybe most tickets).

I guarantee that OP would have saved DediRock a significant amount of money by greatly increasing the number of VMs that he can host on a single node if he had taken the advice. After all, he could have helped people host HTTPS websites without pegging an entire core at 100% as if it's a cryptominer.

By the way, it's not just AES-NI. By enabling host CPU passthrough, you enable various SIMD features newer than SSE2 which accelerate other aspects of TLS, such as DH and ECDH key exchange.

@Kodomu said: I would certainly want to ask if @DediRock has the sufficient experience required to set this stuff up and if not I would propose that they get someone experienced enough to look over everything.

Supposedly he's a ColoCrossing reseller. It's a lot easier to resell a service with a user-friendly control panel and existing nodes maintained by others than it is to buy your own stuff, enter into a contract with a datacenter to get your stuff installed, set up your own nodes and networking and configure it manually, etc. I doubt DediRock has to do anything other than open a ticket with ColoCrossing if something goes wrong that they can't fix in Virtualizor.

With that said, I am happy to see that DediRock is continuing to read this thread rather than just fighting back and huffing and puffing. That shows a willingness to learn and accept criticism, which is not something that can be said of all hosts, and can be said of very few hosts who have made a mistake that gets pointed out on LET.

forest · February 20

@chorong said: At least it’s getting fixed across all their host nodes now.

Did they say it was?

forest · February 21

@alfatarsos said: I mean, if it gets a customer having 100% vCPU usage to 20% vCPU usage isn't it something great for everyone? For the customer that gets more performance and more room to use the product, and for the provider that gets more out of a shared resource? What on Earth was this technical management of a customer?

It's actually even more profound than that. The 100% to 20% reduction came from switching from software AES to ChaCha20 (a totally different algorithm). Switching to hardware AES would reduce it from 100% to literally 2%.

deafcon · February 21

@forest said:

@chorong said: At least it’s getting fixed across all their host nodes now.

Did they say it was?

@DediRock said:

@forest said:
This is really disappointing from DediRock.

There have been a few providers that have accidentally kept -cpu qemu in, but they all switched it to host (or to their lowest-common model) as soon as I asked. Screwing up by turning off CPU features is not a big deal, but doubling down and kicking out the customer for asking for it is serious, in my opinion.

Hey @forest,

Yeah, it was a new one for me. My Sys Admin did check all other nodes and, from what I can tell, there were no other issues with them. We now have checks in place so it does not happen again.

I can see your viewpoint we have had many customers in the past point out mistakes, and we always do our best to address them. We just got the fix in, though, so that is handled.

Thanks!

I read this as if it was a problem on just the one node and that all other nodes were checked for the issue and it was not present.

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