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For some context -- Slicehost has had sort of a user insurrection on their forums, complaining that despite their massive influx of capital from Rackspace, Slic

by jeff18 17y ago

For some context -- Slicehost has had sort of a user insurrection on their forums, complaining that despite their massive influx of capital from Rackspace, Slicehost is totally uncompetitive with Linode and the hundreds of other nearly identical, commoditized hosts. The creator has been apologizing for many months acknowledging that Slicehost has been falling signficantly behind and has stagnated. However, he has been saying essentially "Don't give up yet because February this will all change." This is the February announcement. Basically you get slightly more bandwidth.

billturner 17y ago
I don't think it's the owner that was saying "wait until February," but rather just one of the other employees - one that wrote many of the original tutorials and was hired on because of that.
- brandon272 17y ago
  It was PickledOnion (Paul) who made the claim about announcements coming in February. He was promoted to a management position (he refers to himself as their "GM" in this thread: http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4348&page=1 http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4348&#3...) and appears to be the, or one of the key decision makers at Slicehost now. In that thread, he says that he accepts responsibility for Slicehost languishing during the course of the last year.
grandalf 17y ago
Slicehost isn't even competitive with Rackspace Cloud! The same company offers all slices at 50% off through the Rackspace Cloud brand.
- wmf 17y ago
  The difference is that Slicehost includes bandwidth and Rackspace doesn't. One or the other may be cheaper depending on how much bandwidth you use.
  - moe 17y ago
    And quite a few other providers will be cheaper regardless of how much bandwidth you use...
uggedal 17y ago
I can't help to think that my article comparing Slicehost to its competitors may have had something to do with this trend: http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison I'm pretty sure (based on tweets and emails) a decent chunk of the 200+ Linode referrals I've gotten were from (previous) Slicehost customers.
patio11 17y ago
other nearly identical, commoditized hosts. Funny, I always use Slicehost as the example of a non-commoditized hosting arrangement: back when you could get disk space and terabytes of (gratuitously oversold and capriciously available) bandwidth for $2 a month, they charged ten times that for 256 MB of RAM that would actually be there when you wanted to use it, plus really outstanding support and reliability. Some years later they've got competition in their space, but I still see outstanding support and reliability. I wouldn't mind an extra gig of RAM and a pony but I'm not fixing to move anytime soon.
- bugs 17y ago
  You really should try out linode for a day and even if it comes out equal to slicehost in the end you really have no reason not to switch as it will get you more for the same price. (Unless of course your server setup is so immensely complicated that you can't afford the time it would take to setup a new one.)
  - patio11 17y ago
    Its a question of priorities: I pay $150 a month for hosting. Next to my sales, that's mouse droppings. Getting an extra 512 MB of RAM or 1 GB of RAM at the same price is pretty meaningless to me: the app runs. Running on more RAM will not help me sell more software. Hypothetically saving $50 a month on hosting is also less than motivating to me -- "Try a new host out for a day" means I lose a day that could be sent implementing things that will increase the amount of software I sell in a scalable fashion. For example, A/B testing (or SEO, or writing better email copy, or...). Note that future improvements to cost reduction are not multiplicatively effective but future A/B tests (etc) are. (Saving $50 on hosting costs is a one-off improvement -- it doesn't make my next improvement more effective. Increasing conversions by 1.3% anywhere in my funnel right now would make me about $50 a month. A 1.3% lift does make my next improvement more effective because funnel conversions are essentially multiplicative: 10% improvement at gate A and 10% improvement at gate B means 21% improvement total, not 20%. Most of you probably already know this but if it is news to you bookmark this factoid and come back to it later because it is really freaking important.)

by jeff18 17y ago

billturner 17y ago

I don't think it's the owner that was saying "wait until February," but rather just one of the other employees - one that wrote many of the original tutorials and was hired on because of that.

brandon272 17y ago
It was PickledOnion (Paul) who made the claim about announcements coming in February. He was promoted to a management position (he refers to himself as their "GM" in this thread: http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4348&page=1 http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4348&#3...) and appears to be the, or one of the key decision makers at Slicehost now. In that thread, he says that he accepts responsibility for Slicehost languishing during the course of the last year.

grandalf 17y ago

Slicehost isn't even competitive with Rackspace Cloud! The same company offers all slices at 50% off through the Rackspace Cloud brand.

wmf 17y ago
The difference is that Slicehost includes bandwidth and Rackspace doesn't. One or the other may be cheaper depending on how much bandwidth you use.
- moe 17y ago
  And quite a few other providers will be cheaper regardless of how much bandwidth you use...

uggedal 17y ago

I can't help to think that my article comparing Slicehost to its competitors may have had something to do with this trend: http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison I'm pretty sure (based on tweets and emails) a decent chunk of the 200+ Linode referrals I've gotten were from (previous) Slicehost customers.

patio11 17y ago

other nearly identical, commoditized hosts. Funny, I always use Slicehost as the example of a non-commoditized hosting arrangement: back when you could get disk space and terabytes of (gratuitously oversold and capriciously available) bandwidth for $2 a month, they charged ten times that for 256 MB of RAM that would actually be there when you wanted to use it, plus really outstanding support and reliability. Some years later they've got competition in their space, but I still see outstanding support and reliability. I wouldn't mind an extra gig of RAM and a pony but I'm not fixing to move anytime soon.

bugs 17y ago
You really should try out linode for a day and even if it comes out equal to slicehost in the end you really have no reason not to switch as it will get you more for the same price. (Unless of course your server setup is so immensely complicated that you can't afford the time it would take to setup a new one.)
- patio11 17y ago
  Its a question of priorities: I pay $150 a month for hosting. Next to my sales, that's mouse droppings. Getting an extra 512 MB of RAM or 1 GB of RAM at the same price is pretty meaningless to me: the app runs. Running on more RAM will not help me sell more software. Hypothetically saving $50 a month on hosting is also less than motivating to me -- "Try a new host out for a day" means I lose a day that could be sent implementing things that will increase the amount of software I sell in a scalable fashion. For example, A/B testing (or SEO, or writing better email copy, or...). Note that future improvements to cost reduction are not multiplicatively effective but future A/B tests (etc) are. (Saving $50 on hosting costs is a one-off improvement -- it doesn't make my next improvement more effective. Increasing conversions by 1.3% anywhere in my funnel right now would make me about $50 a month. A 1.3% lift does make my next improvement more effective because funnel conversions are essentially multiplicative: 10% improvement at gate A and 10% improvement at gate B means 21% improvement total, not 20%. Most of you probably already know this but if it is news to you bookmark this factoid and come back to it later because it is really freaking important.)