WebPros/cPanel start directly competing with their customers/license holders

Comments

• LEBUserJoe Member

  June 3

  @webpros

  Absolutely, disgusting company.

  At this rate, what else can be said you have purposed over-increased your licence cost above normal market rate, to help fund your cloud platform faster with the clear intent of moving as many providers to it as possible.

  So it’s not enough to steal from providers making a living using your software, you decided you wanted a larger piece of the pie and you want per customer profit share. nothing short of disgusting.
• LEBUserJoe Member

  June 3 edited June 3

  @JasonM said:

  @raindog308 said: If you're running a shared hosting company, your control panel maker is now competing with you by trying to offer the same service to your customers.

  they should have done this 15 years ago. quite late in the business.
  but ultimately why end-users will go with them if they are into ever-increasing prices yearly for their products.

  Even Softaculous has also lauched something AI coder product which can build sites. They're marketing it to the hosting companies and soon offer it as standalone product with their 500 one-click apps like wordpress and wiki, etc.

  The real value is keeping pricing affordable, good and fast support. WebPros is one of the most greedy companies I've ever seen. So I will never choose them. Today I'll pay $1 next year they'll increase price by 20% then next year 20%. And then either I'm enduser I'll have to pay, if thats a web host reselling their cloud, then also ultimately enduser will have to pay.

  You're assuming they are after, or bother about those types of customers.

  Every business in the tech world, has plenty of customers that just want something to work, or reliable. Every host has these clients.

  Webpro’s only interest in these clients, its clear with the web pro’s cloud they are after business / enterprise customers, and don’t care about the scraps (individuals) that actually care about being scammed. (This is why the so confidently with a smile on there face, say it’s just a helpful addition to your platform)
• Levi Member

  June 3

  Webpros answer was llm slop.
• misnish Member

  June 3

  @raindog308 said:
  I just read the cPanel license agreement.

  If you're a hosting provider who licensed cPanel, you've explicitly given cPanel the right to contact all of your customers in the event cPanel cancels your license or if your license expires.

  "cPanel shall also have the right (but not the obligation) to notify any Third Party Users or an End User that cPanel will or has terminated, suspended or disabled their use of the Software due to the termination or expiration of this Agreement or a breach of this Agreement. In the event that cPanel notifies Third Party Users or an End User pursuant to the preceding sentence, cPanel reserves the right to offer products and services, including, without limitation, the Software, to any Third Party Users or End Users affected by such termination or expiration (or to refer such third parties to other cPanel licensees or affiliates). "

  IANAL but...as I read that, if you decide to switch panels and let your license expire, WebPros can start pinging your customers about switching to WebPros' own service.

  Wonder if that is the case also with the third party or end users of WHMCS, considering that is also now a WebPros product!
• mwt Member

  June 3

  @LEBUserJoe said:

  @mwt said:
  It might be in the agreement to deal with hosts who are using cP with an expired license

  In no way, is this an acceptable or even remotely okay licence policy they are talking about taking / stealing a persons career, or in case of a larger provider entire companies worth of people careers if they was to ever action it.

  If it’s not removed, it can never be trusted they won’t try.

  Suppose a host stops paying for cP and stays on a pirated old version, the policy lets cP notify the host's customers that the host is using cP unlawfully and that they aren't getting the latest security patches.

  Trying to sell products to those customers would be pretty sketchy, but notifying people that their host is stealing and putting them at risk doesn't seem so bad.
• mwt Member

  June 3

  Personally, though. I'd prefer if hosts contributed to an open source panel, ideally with a terrible name like "Waifu Panel" so that people are embarrassed to admit that they use it and also can't abbreviate to an acronym without confusing people
• gbzret4d Member

  June 3

  @webpros said:
  Thanks for raising these concerns. We understand why the announcement was interpreted this way, and we’d like to provide some additional context.

  WebPros Cloud is built as a partner-first, partner-only platform. Partners can offer these services under their own brand, set their own pricing, and continue to own their customer relationships. WebPros Cloud is not intended to sell these services directly to end customers.

  The idea behind WebPros Cloud is simple: many partners have told us they want to spend less time managing infrastructure and day-to-day operations, and more time focused on growing their business, supporting customers. We provide underlying infrastructure, platform and operational support that make this possible.

  WebPros has always been a B2B business, and our success is tied directly to the success of our partners. WebPros Cloud was created to help partners grow faster and more efficiently, not compete with them.

  For anyone interested in learning more about the model and how it works in practice, we’ve shared additional details here:
  https://www.webpros.cloud/how-to-scale-hosting-business-without-managing-infrastructure/

  All I read is marketing blablablabla
• LEBUserJoe Member

  June 3

  @mwt said:

  @LEBUserJoe said:

  @mwt said:
  It might be in the agreement to deal with hosts who are using cP with an expired license

  In no way, is this an acceptable or even remotely okay licence policy they are talking about taking / stealing a persons career, or in case of a larger provider entire companies worth of people careers if they was to ever action it.

  If it’s not removed, it can never be trusted they won’t try.

  Suppose a host stops paying for cP and stays on a pirated old version, the policy lets cP notify the host's customers that the host is using cP unlawfully and that they aren't getting the latest security patches.

  Trying to sell products to those customers would be pretty sketchy, but notifying people that their host is stealing and putting them at risk doesn't seem so bad.

  Disagree heavily here, there ToS can only apply to those under contract with them for services, those uses old or pirated version’s are not. CPanel also has no way to find there infromation. No licensing servers. So clearly with that said it’s designed for there genuine paying customers.
• offf Member

  June 3

  Some of you may find this interesting. Out of respect for a very professional and helpful WebPros manager, I won't share all the details, but direct participation in the WebPros ecosystem seems to start somewhere around $600/month with a 2-year commitment.