Unlimited disk and bandwidth until September 10th!

I have to admit that I hate off-topic posts in "Curious About DreamHost", but did notice today that Dreamhost is offering a particularly nice promotion through September 10th where new signups get unlimited disk and bandwidth.

BTW, no need for more controversy about how it's difficult to use infinite amounts of disk and bandwith without overloading the CPU or MySQL server. Everyone knows that it's difficult to do - only truly expert webmasters know how to achieve it when they need it. There's no need for anyone else to demonstrate their ignorance about either the business overselling or the different performance profiles of different types of websites. smile

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This is spam.

If you have been in this forum for a while, you will know that Lensman is a regular customer here and has helped a lot of people.

I believe he just wants to tell us about the new promotion of DH. If you take a look at DH's website, you will know what he means.
http://www.dreamhost.com

hey, it's their anniversary soon. i signed up mid september 2003 for an awesome deal...so i believe it!!!

I was on Code Monster until tonight. I switched to the Happy Hosting plan cause I saw the ad on the home page about unlimited disk and bandwidth but that's not what I got on my account. What is up with that. I would be quite annoyed if those of us who have supported Dreamhost for years and years are not eligible for the same deal as newcomers who have not. Unlimited disk and bandwidth is the new standard in this business.

In reply to:
would be quite annoyed if those of us who have supported Dreamhost for years and years are not eligible for the same deal as newcomers who have not.

Unlimited is no different than what they already offer, so it doesn't make a difference. I doubt there are any shared hosts, even that use "unlimited" in their marketing, that let you use what Dreamhost does.

The only way the "unlimited" gimmick will go away is if a host ever loses in a courtroom where a judge declares CPU restrictions as a "limit."

If Dreamhost feels the need to remove hard limits because everyone else does, I wish they'd avoid the "unlimited" thing and go with "All you need!"

"All you need!" doesn't override limits set within the TOS, so you'll never "need" more than you can use within those limits.

That gives the customer the warm feeling that their zero traffic web site isn't constrained by realistic limits that they never could have maxed out anyway, all while letting Dreamhost remove hard limits like their competitors that limit their unlimited plans. tongue

I wonder whether DH will allow existing customers to upgrade their plans to unlimited ones smile

The silly thing about it is that many current customers are pestering support about just that. No one who I have seen that has asked is even using 10% of their current plan, but for some reason they REALLY, REALLY! need unlimited. Their plan already grows every week anyways and they aren't even keeping pace with that. You know but what if they happen to get a contract to serve all of the video for the London Olympic Games in 2012 or something? I mean shouldn't they be trying to get unlimited now just in case?

The sale is to test just how much people want unlimited as irrational as that desire is. Anecdotal evidence says they want it a lot, but this will give us some hard numbers in order to settle an internal debate about whether the market demands that we call it unlimited even though its effectively unlimited already anyways.

I need 37 cars myself. you know, just in case I really, really! need to get somewhere someday.

In reply to:
The sale is to test just how much people want unlimited as irrational as that desire is. Anecdotal evidence says they want it a lot, but this will give us some hard numbers in order to settle an internal debate about whether the market demands that we call it unlimited even though its effectively unlimited already anyways.

In reply to:
The silly thing about it is that many current customers are pestering support about just that.

Why are current customers silly while prospective customers are merely potentially irrational? I think you're discovering that there is demand for even more food on the all-you-can-eat buffet that is Dreamhost. It doesn't matter that every customer's limit currently involves 2 pigs, a cow and 14 chickens (not to mention the 5 gallon drum of ice cream). People want more!

Heck, the current unlimited customers from this promotion would start complaining if you started offering... double unlimited disk and bandwidth... yeah, that's it! wink

I personally think there's something to be said for keeping "unlimited" a premium level that you charge more for (even though it's actually not that much more expensive). That way, you can reap 80% of the marketing benefit since people will see that it's "available" to them for a low addon price. Unfortunately, I think you keep 100% of the liability from the very few customers who do manage to use more than their 500GB.

Personally, I see some danger to shared web hosts from upcoming massive collections HD home video shared on family websites.

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In reply to:
Why are current customers silly while prospective customers are merely potentially irrational?

I think the scale from lowest to highest is actually:

1. silly
2. irrational
3. bat foo insane

In reply to:
>Why are current customers silly while prospective customers are merely potentially irrational?

I think the scale from lowest to highest is actually:

1. silly
2. irrational
3. bat foo insane

I tend to equate (1) and (2) - expecting any sort of "unlimited" anything is both silly and irrational, but in defense of that notion, DH actually offering "unlimited" is an equally urine-poor marketing gadget that I find myself at least slightly disappointed with.

DH has consistently been top-notch geek-choice for hosting and..
1) offering "unlimited" service to begin with, and
2) not expecting a few metric shiat-loads of responses falling in all the categories of "silly", "irrational", and "bat foo insane"
..was a bit short-sighted.

JMHO kids.

ps. I'm one of the customers who doesn't care just so long as the site is up and operating within reasonable parameters. My only concern is some number of the "bat foo insane" potential customers madly point-click-drooling their way to DH for their "UNLIMITED!!" service and thusly clogging bandwidth, technical support, and these august fora with their nonsense.

so long as the site is up and operating within reasonable parameters

Exactly what I'm expecting from Dreamhost and I haven't been disappointed yet.

I think a problem is that some people drawn in by terms like 'unlimited' don't understand the nature of shared hosting. Unlimited bandwidth and storage, to me, just re-enforces the concept that those aren't the real bottlenecks - the bottleneck of course is CPU usage. (I'm thinking about the guy who saw unlimited MYSQL dbs and figured he could run a high speed/quality video sharing & storage site on some $6 a month)

~
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In reply to:
but this will give us some hard numbers in order to settle an internal debate about whether the market demands that we call it unlimited even though its effectively unlimited already anyways.

Pleeeease consider something like my "All you need!" suggestion, if you must remove the limits. wink

I always liked that you guys didn't push the SLA gimmick even though everyone else does, so it would be a shame if you went with this one.

I just have a hard time believing that eventually, a judge isn't going to call a CPU limit "a limit" on unlimited bandwidth or disk space, since it is, if it's mentioned in the TOS.

In that case, where "unlimited" would technically be false advertising because of the TOS, something corny like "99999999 gazillion TB" wouldn't... it just wouldn't be possible.

I think if you used different wording to say that the hard LIMITS on the account aren't disk space or bandwidth (which is how it already is), it would give "the market" what they want, while being honest about it and not offending those that are smart enough to know if something is unlimited or not.

It could even be used to point out that unlimited is a poor choice of words for any host to use, since every single one has limits. That way, you'd be educating the clueless masses while selling them what others would have labeled as unlimited.

A different approach could even be worthy of a Josh-blog-post explaining it and pointing out that unlimited just doesn't exist. Kinda like how he put SLAs in their place. wink

I just think the fact that everyone else is doing it is a good reason for Dreamhost to not do it and stand out for being unique. Especially since you can probably use more disk space and bandwidth at Dreamhost than you can at the hosts that are claiming unlimited.

Can I finally set up that 1 Terabyte SQL database I've always dreamed of?

-Scott

after all, after all, after all, if it is possible for existing customers, i would like to switch to unlimited plans. Never dream of solving all the problems. This is the best we can have in shared server.

Too late to edit my post to add a p.s.

With the Unlimited plan, will my Account Status now say "Using 0% of ∞?" My bandwidth already says 0%, but I feel like such a disk hog with my 3%.

-Scott

I signed up at the same time, macinarizona and I have been an elated evangelist of Dreamhost ever since. This thread has me a little upset though...

The fact that I am using three tenths of a percent of my allotted bandwidth clearly indicates that I got screwed since my usage isn't unlimited.

...or whatever. ;)

Unlimited disk and bandwidth until September 10th!