Is 1000gb hosting really not the same as unlimited?

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Posted by JixHost, 04-05-2014, 06:26 PM
Hi, Just wondering at which point is a hosting account being the same as unlimited. One sees on wht 10,000gb hosting plans etc. Is this just a loophole to say they are not unlimited so they can post in the advert section? If that's the case should we change our unlimited plan to a 999,999gb plan so we would no longer be "unlimited" and be allowed post it in the advert section? This is an actual question for the mods. Thanks. Last edited by JixHost; 04-05-2014 at 06:31 PM.
Posted by nibb, 04-05-2014, 06:48 PM
Yes, its the same gimmick. It started like that, I offered 20GB, you offer 200GB, then you offered 2000GB, then I offer 20,000GB, then you offered unlimited. Hostgator is a pretty good example on how they where raising limits in the past 10 years. WHT does not allow unlimited I think. Now, because people do not believe the unlimited offers anymore, not at least as much as they used too, in part thanks to idiots like me which inform users in WHT for years how this does not work and how its cheating, and allot of other users that have learned and tell to users, unlimited hosts are suddenly going back. I saw allot of unlimited hostings, going back to limited real plans. And in some other cases they are doing what you said, they prefer to say 1000 GB instead of unlimited because that sounds more real, but its the same gimmick and same fraud, even worse, because now they actually have to comply with offering those limits, and we know they wont. Otherwise people would be just using a 1000 GB as a backup server for example, just to mention one use. They are all gimmicks and they usually do not last very long once the bad reviews start to come in. The market tends to correct itself by its own. I´m sure in the future when technology is more common, I´m 100% sure that this offers are not going to be legal since they are going to be considered consumer fraud, its just abusing on someone that does not understand technology and selling him some fake, just to never actually have the intention of providing it to him with hidden limits. For me its plain fraud, you are taking someones money and cheating them at the same time because most people actually do not know that unlimited is not really unlimited. In that case its cheating. If I go to a car dealer and I don´t know anything about cars, I expect that company to be honest and sell me something for the price of the market, working, etc. Not to sell me a bike. Users ask companies in their sector exactly for this advice in all types of business, because they trust them. Now, how do you think someone that does not know about technology would feel when they find out his hosting company cheated him? Because they don´t inform anywhere in the purchase, or after it, what the unlimited really means since it would hurt their sales. The reason you can prove this shows its a scam. They gain monetary income for cheating as many people as they possible can and have no interested in actually informing upfront what the unlimited means of what the customer is actually buying for this money. There are laws in almost any country against other things which are far less consumer cheating than this. Last edited by nibb; 04-05-2014 at 06:54 PM.
Posted by AcclaimedHost Alan, 04-05-2014, 07:32 PM
No, they're not the same. When you advertise X amount of GB, I would expect to be able to use them. This is because you've put a hard, strict limit on it. When you advertise unlimited, I wouldn't expect to be able to use it (because usually companies with unlimited disk space hide behind their terms of service). After all, there is no form of unlimited. This is just my perception. I'm interested to see what others think, too! /subscribed Edit: also, it's not a loophole. WHT now allows unlimited offers IIRC
Posted by xnpu, 04-05-2014, 08:20 PM
Obviously offering 1000GB knowing you're going to deliver only 100GB is cheating, but there are situations that aren't that clear cut. Imagine you offer someone 1GB of storage space on your server which has a 2TB disk. Sounds easy enough right? What if this person starts uploading 1GB of tiny Windows 3.11 icon files? You'll run out of inodes before he ever finishes his upload. Did you cheat him? or is his usage just so unusual that you can't be held responsible? And how would you solve the situation? Tell him his usage is unusual and can't be accommodated? Give him more storage space so he has more inodes available? If so, do you give it for free or do you charge him extra? Will you setup a separate server with a different disk format for users with tiny files? How far do you go to deliver on your promise when things go different than you anticipated? The same is true for the "unlimited" offers. Imagine you have 3000 customers that each pay for 5GB of disk space. On average they use only 2GB of the 5GB that they have available. You do some experiments where you upgrade people to 10GB, 15GB and even 50GB for free. Turns out, the average use remains stable at around 2GB. At this point you draw the conclusion that you just as well offer them unlimited disk space. Some users may start using more disk space, but it's unlikely the average will exceed the 5GB that you've factored into your prices. At the same time your customers will worry less about their space filling up or receiving bills for overages. This translates into more sales. Now a new customer comes along that uses a lot of data. He exceeds the 5GB you anticipated. In fact, he goes way beyond 500GB. On average you're still turning a profit though, and you DID promise unlimited data, so you just let him be. At some point things become complicated though. His usage is so large that a single server doesn't accommodate him. You would have to purchase a NAS, especially for him. He's also coming close to eating up your entire profit. How far do you go to deliver on your promise? Was promising unlimited space stupid when you can't accommodate 1 in 3000 customers? Was it cheating? If it's just 1 in 3000 I wouldn't even think about it twice. Just apologise, refund the guy and move on. But when does it become a problem? I really don't know. To make a long story short: there are those that intentionally cheat and they deserve to be destroyed by the market. However, there are those that have good intentions and reasonable strategies to deliver. Last but not least, as a bulk user of dedicated servers with tons of providers I can tell you that some of the "100TB for $99" servers perform considerably better than some of the "5TB for $299" ones. A "realistic" promise with a high price isn't much more of a guarantee than "unlimited for cheap". In the end it's all about *who's* making the promise.
Posted by nibb, 04-05-2014, 08:20 PM
Sure, I also expect to use, it but what you and I expect and what they expect when they sell you that, is another story. It would be interesting to know how they play out if you happen to start to upload your home videos to this services, or backups from other servers to use their storage. Hell, its very easy to prove how this unlimited and big limits hosts work. Just create a script that writes unlimited data to the disk and see how far it goes. Depending how big the file grows you are going to test real live if they are really giving you the 1000 GB. Busted !!!!!
Posted by JixHost, 04-05-2014, 09:47 PM
Can a moderator confirm this or is it written?
Posted by KMyers, 04-05-2014, 11:33 PM
This is true, WHT now allows "Unlimited" and has since September of 2013 (Much to a lot of member dismay). Here is the "Official" thread about it http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1302467 It gets a bit heated and was closed by the mods.
Posted by Postbox, 04-06-2014, 07:58 AM
Which would have been better in a helpdesk ticket. See above, and also check the announcement at the top of each offers section (and the date it was revised).