I have been hosting my websites for the last 4 years or so on a premium provider, MediaTemple. They have been efficient, no hassle, and have offered great service when I needed it. I have 7 domains hosted with them, and their basic hosting package has served me well.
I have sung praises to them, and have recommended them, even though they are not the cheapest supplier out there. For me, the $20 a month has been worth it for the support, the reliability, and the high quality tools they have offered.
To compare, I use GoDaddy for one of the sites I manage (for a non-profit that I donate my time to). Their support is OK. Their tools are crappy to manage the hosting, the data bases, and other administrivia. But what I hate most of all, is the constant upselling they do. They continually try to sell more domains, more services, addons. It is enough to make me loathe logging into their website unless I have to.
I had been plotting how to move that site to Media Temple when the prepaid period was up.
Then today I got the email from the founder and CEO of MediaTemple. Since he wouldn’t know me from Adam, I was worried.
I was right to be worried. He was announcing that Media Temple was being acquired by GoDaddy. A million voices were crying “Nooooooooooooo!” in my head. Of all the sleazeball, scummy webhosting providers to sell to, they had to pick the bottom feeders. The shit-birds at GoDaddy. Of course the email was full of assurances that the MediaTemple experience wouldn’t change, and that it would be autonomous from the GoDaddy. Their posted FAQ was about how GoDaddy was looking to improve their relationship with web developers, and professionals, and that acquiring Media Temple was a path forward there.
Yeah, and pigs will fly.
If GoDaddy wants to improve its image and reputation among the serious web developers and professionals, they should probably stop being scum of the earth, marketing bloated, pushers of mediocre products. Furthermore, they should improve their infrastructure, and tools on the back end so that I don’t have to navigate 10 pages to figure out how to set a CNAME.
Reading the comments on the FAQ was about 99-1 against this move, and how a lot of people will be looking for new hosting. I know I will be moving completely off them.
Perhaps it is time to go VPS.
