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Donation Based VPS Organization
Here's the idea of what EastCoastVPS.org is:
We are an organization that supplies free VPS services to verifiable users who really have a use for them.
Now the VPSes will be upgradeable at cost.
If you'd like more RAM, HDD Space, Bandwidth, etc we will do what we can to supply it at the lowest possible price possible.
This will be a not for profit organization, and should there be any kind of extra cash that comes out of any particular server, it will be reinvested into more infrastructure for more VPS users.
This is not fly by night. If the donations don't cover costs, then the difference will come out of my pocket. Either way, the servers will stay up.
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Comments
So basically, you are paying for your VM and call that payment a donation?
-snip-
Better slice the server up with Xen charging just enough to cover the costs and having people donate because it's non-profit
No you would be able to get a free server with slightly lower specs and then if you wanted something higher the donation would be to cover the impact on the other users.
@BronzeByte I plan to pay out of my own pocket should there not be sufficient donations. This is also not for spammers. There would be at the minimum a form of identity verification.
It's not about being rich or poor, it's about developing a community of VPS users.
horrible business plan, stop there, we don't need another summer host to die together with all the data we stored on the VPSes
Uhm... What do you think this is?
so.... another host1free?
Wow you are one cynical person.
I make good money doing what I do, and decide to try and give back to this place at a reasonable rate and you crap all over it.
Good Game man. I've been hosting for 8 years without so much as a hiccup. I try to come into this place and you act like a total douche. Incredible.
That is, unfortunately, rather common in this community. It is difficult for others here to believe that other human beings may have different emotions/morals/world views than themselves.
Anyway, I'd say that it's not a terrible idea, but please do what you can to prevent abuse. You may get in touch with @dmmcintyre3 to learn of any issues he's had in his own service. You can expect that your service may attract abusers, just because it's free.
Why buy a 'donation' VPS when you can buy similarly priced cheap VPSs or even get a Free VPS ( http://freevps.us/ )?
Not saying it wont work, but yeah..
That's not a donation. That's a disguised way of saying "upgrade".
The point of a donation is that it's voluntary, one-way. Whether you are receiving something is not supposed to hold any relevance to whether you are giving something. Just call it what it is, a paid upgrade.
Not having the intention of profit doesn't automatically make something a 'donation'.
EDIT: That said, this is not necessarily a bad idea.
Do whatever u want bro. As long you think its the right thing for you.
I thought this, too. The service sounds more like a freemium model. Basic product is free, you pay for enhanced features.
Fair enough. It was just a thought I had but based on the reactions here, it looks like people are happy with what they have, so why bother?
@raindog308 The idea would be to upgrade at the absolute COST of the ram instead of some inflated number to make money. The idea would be that each server would pay its own bills. Nothing more nothing less. If there was a "profit" it would be thrown towards additional servers.
If you were going to do donate to have better specs, you should make it a recurring donation.
With me of course footing the bill and time to get it set up and running. Maybe even have community votes on the next location and specs based on donations received.
I think you will quickly reach the limit of what one man is able to support. Or willing to support. I'm not sure which you'd hit first.
The community is not going to have the headaches of disks failing, alerts at 2am, DMCA notices, DDOS attacks, resource abusers, support tickets, etc.
So you propose some scheme like "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". And i thought the communism is dead
Be careful. What you think is breaking even today easily becomes a financial burden tomorrow. Make sure you aim for really low overall costs, like some of these $39/m dedicateds, if you really want to go that route.
Specifically what I'm referring to are the often forgotten costs. Now you're already involved in hosting, so you know PayPal fees. Chargebacks are inevitable, and they hurt. Licensing costs, etc. Make sure you've figured in every penny. I'm not saying you haven't, just being friendly.
If you've done your homework and you're ready for it, go for it. I would suggest avoiding large scale at no profit though. Small unforeseen issues at high volume can quickly knock you down and I mean at a really personal level. Don't risk your own financial stability over it.
This. Every 12 YO Tom, Dick and Harry.
In theory it sounds nice but it's not going to work in the long run.
Free web hosting is easy because you can pack 2000 people on one cheap $39/month Kimsufi + $33/month cPanel license and if they want to upgrade to the premium version just have a second server for premium users.
VPS is different; each VPS needs an IP and those aren't free/unlimited, and each VPS even when idle, will swallow up some resources.
Additionally, it's easier to spam using a VPS, so you'll have to deal with that a lot.
The people that use free VPS will bitch and whine the loudest about slow performance, downtime, limitations and restrictions, etc.
It's like giving out free cars that can die any moment when you are in the middle of your way on vacation, lol
Speaking of uptime, yours is really bad
Had same idea ... in another threat ... Wish you the best ... but i think you should be honest and allow yourself to get paid for the administration work. At least you should be transparent in a non profit way
Whats wrong with that !!!
@BronzeByte you referring to my Pingdom page?
I monitor hostnames not IPs so when CloudFlare went down Pingdom thought everything went down. I'm not going to keep Pingdom I don't like it.
In the long run it'll work fine. This is my money we're talking about. If people want to get involved and donate, I'm willing to support it. If it gets more than I can handle, then I will hire staff. Finding server staff in Ottawa is pretty simple.
Ah, sorry, makes sense :-)
Me neither, too many false positives, making your own is free, customizable and fun ;-)
@agoldenberg I can give you a discount on a dedicated server.