I don't think it would be fair to subsume shared hosting under "2. The Dorm Room" just because of performance characteristics. A virtual server gives you a lot

I don't think it would be fair to subsume shared hosting under "2. The Dorm Room" just because of performance characteristics. A virtual server gives you a lot more freedom to choose your software stack than most shared hosting plans can ever approximate. Even when it comes to performance, there's a world of difference between the average GoDaddy hosting plan and a medium-sized Linode.