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Why is this attitude so commonplace? Servers are worthless to a hosting company without utilization. It’s in their best interest to have them pegged 100%. Like

Why is this attitude so commonplace? Servers are worthless to a hosting company without utilization. It’s in their best interest to have them pegged 100%. Like airplanes - they don’t make money when they are empty. Why do so many in this thread think “I am using 100% of what I pay for! They are bound to change it soon!” That’s not how it works. If I offer you service for a fee, I’m going to allow you to use 100% of that service for that fee.

sureIy 2y ago
Maximized by flat rate payer, minimized by pay-per-use. You want to maximize it, the hosting definitely prefers someone who pays and doesn't use, so they can double-book that server.
keyle 2y ago
I'm not sure why you compare this to airplanes. Airplanes fuel consumption is very expensive if the plane is empty relative to profit. They need to put bums in seats for the flight to be viable commercially. On the other hand, a flat out rack takes more power than an idle one. So this isn't the same thing at all.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Yeah, the GP comment is so dumb. Most commercial aircraft are owned by a few leasing companies. They would love if lessors didn't fly the aircraft, but paid leasing fees!
CGamesPlay 2y ago
This is absolutely untrue in both a naive and more nuanced sense. Naively, it's not like an airplane, it's like an airplane rented by the month: the owner of the airplane collects rent whether or not the airplane is flying. More nuanced, many VPS providers don't sell you 100% CPU utilization; they sell you a compute budget. AWS actually enforces this; I don't know about other providers. But if you're exceeding your compute budget and the provider doesn't enforce the budget limit, you can expect the system to break at some point.
BoorishBears 2y ago
No competitively priced VPS* is charging a price that works when everyone is fully utilizing their entire quota at 100%... It's not nefarious: you pay a bit more than the compute you use would cost on a fractional basis, and in exchange the cost of entry is dramatically reduced, spikes in usage get absorbed, etc. It's a win for everyone involved unless usage patterns shift and suddenly there's never a surplus to go around. At that point prices will quickly climb to roughly what dedicated resources cost. (*and frankly it's not just VPS, a lot of cloud services rely on everyone not trying to max out their quota at the same time to even function, let alone profit.)
mr_toad 2y ago
On the other hand airlines regularly overbook flights, and residential ISPs don’t have nearly enough bandwidth for every customer to max it out.
fastball 2y ago
Completely backwards. A server that is being paid for but not utilized is the best-case scenario for a hosting provider – revenue the same, lower costs (electrical/cooling/etc).
- dastbe 2y ago
  in mba brain, but hosting providers want as much utilization because it means people are going to use more over time.
  - nafey 2y ago
    They want more users, not more utilization. Utilization is the effect of users not its cause. They are happy to have utilization increase as long as they keep getting more users. If the utilization increases while number of users remain constant because people (like OP) are using CPU intensive programs then that is not in their interest.
  - fastball 2y ago
    Not really. If I have a profitable app that only uses 10% CPU on average, and you have a profitable app that uses 90% CPU on average (because it is a more CPU intensive program), both of us are going to keep paying our hosting provider indefinitely, but you are less profitable to them.
Chaosvex 2y ago
I think others have said it well enough, but you're mixing the VPS business model up with cloud. It's in the interests of cloud providers to have you utilising resources because that's how you're billed. VPS and dedicated servers just give you a bill for potential utilisation, regardless of how much or little you choose to actually use (excluding bandwidth overages).
IAmGraydon 2y ago
You seem oddly emotional about this. Also, you're wrong. Hosting companies count on a certain <100% average CPU usage, and this factors in to their business model in the shared CPU plans. That's literally why those plans exist, because they are getting more users on a machine by counting on less than 100% usage. The users get a lower price and the risk of getting throttled in certain situations. Nowhere in their product description do they promise you can use 100% all the time. If you want that, you go to their dedicated plans. Don't get so emotional, but if you do, at least make sure you aren't wrong first.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

sureIy 2y ago

Maximized by flat rate payer, minimized by pay-per-use. You want to maximize it, the hosting definitely prefers someone who pays and doesn't use, so they can double-book that server.

keyle 2y ago

I'm not sure why you compare this to airplanes. Airplanes fuel consumption is very expensive if the plane is empty relative to profit. They need to put bums in seats for the flight to be viable commercially. On the other hand, a flat out rack takes more power than an idle one. So this isn't the same thing at all.

throwaway2037 2y ago
Yeah, the GP comment is so dumb. Most commercial aircraft are owned by a few leasing companies. They would love if lessors didn't fly the aircraft, but paid leasing fees!

CGamesPlay 2y ago

This is absolutely untrue in both a naive and more nuanced sense. Naively, it's not like an airplane, it's like an airplane rented by the month: the owner of the airplane collects rent whether or not the airplane is flying. More nuanced, many VPS providers don't sell you 100% CPU utilization; they sell you a compute budget. AWS actually enforces this; I don't know about other providers. But if you're exceeding your compute budget and the provider doesn't enforce the budget limit, you can expect the system to break at some point.

BoorishBears 2y ago

No competitively priced VPS* is charging a price that works when everyone is fully utilizing their entire quota at 100%... It's not nefarious: you pay a bit more than the compute you use would cost on a fractional basis, and in exchange the cost of entry is dramatically reduced, spikes in usage get absorbed, etc. It's a win for everyone involved unless usage patterns shift and suddenly there's never a surplus to go around. At that point prices will quickly climb to roughly what dedicated resources cost. (*and frankly it's not just VPS, a lot of cloud services rely on everyone not trying to max out their quota at the same time to even function, let alone profit.)

mr_toad 2y ago

On the other hand airlines regularly overbook flights, and residential ISPs don’t have nearly enough bandwidth for every customer to max it out.

fastball 2y ago

Completely backwards. A server that is being paid for but not utilized is the best-case scenario for a hosting provider – revenue the same, lower costs (electrical/cooling/etc).

dastbe 2y ago
in mba brain, but hosting providers want as much utilization because it means people are going to use more over time.
- nafey 2y ago
  They want more users, not more utilization. Utilization is the effect of users not its cause. They are happy to have utilization increase as long as they keep getting more users. If the utilization increases while number of users remain constant because people (like OP) are using CPU intensive programs then that is not in their interest.
- fastball 2y ago
  Not really. If I have a profitable app that only uses 10% CPU on average, and you have a profitable app that uses 90% CPU on average (because it is a more CPU intensive program), both of us are going to keep paying our hosting provider indefinitely, but you are less profitable to them.

Chaosvex 2y ago

I think others have said it well enough, but you're mixing the VPS business model up with cloud. It's in the interests of cloud providers to have you utilising resources because that's how you're billed. VPS and dedicated servers just give you a bill for potential utilisation, regardless of how much or little you choose to actually use (excluding bandwidth overages).

IAmGraydon 2y ago

You seem oddly emotional about this. Also, you're wrong. Hosting companies count on a certain <100% average CPU usage, and this factors in to their business model in the shared CPU plans. That's literally why those plans exist, because they are getting more users on a machine by counting on less than 100% usage. The users get a lower price and the risk of getting throttled in certain situations. Nowhere in their product description do they promise you can use 100% all the time. If you want that, you go to their dedicated plans. Don't get so emotional, but if you do, at least make sure you aren't wrong first.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]