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Five stages of a future Dead Pool dweller
Based on our recent experiences with UptimeVPS, ENetSouth and other dead pool dwellers, I've charted the path of your typical "pump and dump" VPS provider:
- Marketing Blitz: The provider is all over LEB, LET, WHT, etc. with new deals, friendly help.
- Too Good to Be True: The provider offers unreal plans, like 2GB for $7/month or 1GB for $40/year.
- Performance Woes: Your VPS is increasingly sluggish, with frequent reboots and downtime.
- Failure to Communicate: Forum comments stop; tweets are only news items; problems go unexplained.
- Zombieland: Your VPS is up but the provider's tech support is unresponsive, SolusVM is down, web site is gone.
I'm concerned about 123Systems - they've offered 2GB for $10/month and 1GB for $45/year, continue to offer $10/year plans, every other tweet is irrelevant news, no network status updates are posted, and my VPS' performance is slipping.
Anybody see other current providers at one of the above stages?
Comments
I'm sure someone is going to flag me for being at #1 so I'll jump the wagon and try to prevent someone from opening a can of worms (or whatever you want to call it). I'm here to say, that's all there is to it.
I'm surprised IonVM isn't in the deadpool yet... I've had a VPS with them for about 5 months now and it has surprisingly been great. But, it was ran by Dan Fry (Someone who often sells his sites) and it is now under control by JaguarPC. I am not that worried about 123Systems because they have been here for a while now. Their VPS performance isn't anything special.
Nobody has ever said that before entering the deadpool, thanks for the enlightenment.
@mitgib - I'm sure no one has... LOL no I understand the sarcasm.
I certainly have not heard from @123Systems in a while. Someone told me he gave up and changed his name to @Naruto but I can't confirm this.
If there isn't reported downtime ("Hey HE just decided to plug a disco ball into their main power grid and blew the WHOLE thing, we'll be back up ASAP"), then that's usually a sign that they're done.
Francisco
What I can say of 123, is that surprisingly I am getting acceptable ticket response. Also the guy has been very polite with me o_O
I don't believe in your opinions about providers that post 2GB VPS's for $7 ;-)
Yes, I must co-sign on ChicagoVPS's case; however, I think ChicagoVPS is the only exception, haha.
A "Pump and Dump" sure seems like a hell of a lot of work for not a lot of money?
I guess I just don't buy that these folks do all this work and have no plans for sticking around for the long term.
You are more right than most that cry over joeprovider running with all their riches. More often than not, someone saw this as easy/fast get rich quick type of business, and the greed got the better part of them, and lack of a solid business plan kicked their ass to the deadpool in no time flat. So most of these "scammers" are leaving more pennyless than they entered with. I am in no way trying to defend their actions, it's just reality is a very different story than what I see as the majority belief.
I agree. I now think that frequent updates about network problems are the most important thing to look for when selecting a VPS provider. They provide insight into the competence and honesty of the provider, the reliability of the data center, and a realistic sense of future performance.
@LongShot - If they have 0 downtime and are great providers with no issues, their Announcements might not have anything to be honest about. If they have a lot of outages listed, it shows honesty but also instability. What do you do in those cases?
Good providers are still announcing server upgrades, routine maintenance, migrations, beta testing, etc.
As for frequent problems, it's all part of the cost-benefit analysis. I'll use a less reliable but very cheap VPS as a munin server, backup site or sandbox. It's just nice to know what you are getting up front.
disco ball lol
last time i was at fmt it looked kinda... run down a bit.. is it still like that?
@cripperz have all five points hahaha
FMT1 still feels quite dated. FMT2 feels new but needs to be completed.
Francisco
Zombieland is the worst.