Yikes, all those hosting prices seem... well, high.
It's ok if you've got a blog like Steve and are getting a tonn of traffic and actually using your bandwidth, but to me, most hosting sites (especially when it comes to small online businesses and websites, etc) don't use nearly the full bandwidth allocation that the hosting deals give them. It's like ordering a super-large-jumbo pizza that you can't finish, nor can you really readily go around to people and say "want some pizza?" without them giving you strange looks. (Ok, you probably could, but you'll get at least *some* strange looks. Lets pretend that's a deterrent for now.
) The pizza company may be happy, but you've got half a pizza left over, not doing anything particularly efficient.
Enter NearlyFreeSpeech.net.
http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
Suffice to say I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching NearlyFreeSpeech, and have even started up a free hosting plan.
You can create an account and get a site started for free--yes, for $0. They give you $0.02 to start with--again, not kidding--and from that you can load up a site. From there, you have $5 and $10 recharge options.
From what I can tell, they're the real deal, but I'm going to have to keep using them some more before I know for sure. But then I like to jump into the pool rather than (unless the pool is really cold... but this particular pool looks warm and inviting with lots of women in bikinis
).
To share the NFS motto:
Quote:
Q. Where's the best place to put my web-hosting dollars?
A. In your wallet.
|
I also agree that you should put
your hosting dollars in
my wallet. In the meantime, perhaps try putting them in yours.
Check out their site for info (linked to above), or their
super-detailed FAQ (it's even longer and more nicely formatted than one of my forum posts... I think I may have them on the humour, though
). These guys have basically started a service where they put the user first, and make that into a business, and they understand that to do that they need to be genuine, up front, and efficient (so they tend to not waste their money on unnecessary stuff and optimise their system as much as possible so they have low expenses, and they can pass that onto you as a business model).
I wouldn't recommend their service for a really high traffic site like Steve's, but for the hundreds of thousands of sites that aren't getting traffic like Steve's... well, paying about $10 to $20 hosting a year, depending on traffic, is pretty good. And FYI, their costs get *cheaper* the more traffic you use. (Thanks to their good business optimisation.)
Oh and in case you were wondering, no, I'm not affiliated with them. They
don't even have an affiliate program!