A couple of months ago, I awakened to a horrifying announcement. My web host, Media Temple, had been acquired by the sleaze peddlers at GoDaddy. Ugh.
I had been hosting with MT since 2009, and had been very satisfied. Great performance, flexible, and when I needed it, awesome service. They were not an inexpensive solution at $20 a month, but I felt confident in paying the premium at the time.
Fast forward to early 2012. I got drafted into putting up a website for a local non-profit that I volunteered at. They had registered their domain with GoDaddy, so I just sucked it up and got the mid tier GoDaddy hosting package, and set up their site.
As a webhost, GoDaddy wasn’t terrible. The support was better than I thought, but the one thing that annoyed the fuck out of me was their constant blasting me with offers.
Buy more domains! Really CHEEP domains!
UPGRADE your email!
Blah blah blah. Being a marketing person, I understand the power of promotion, and generating interest. But FFS, web domains are not an impulse buy. The same with hosting upgrades.
Of course MT swore that they wouldn’t change one bit by being bought by GoDaddy. That changed in mid November when I got email blasts from MT offering a service to “Tune up my website in advance of the holiday rush”.
Last weekend, I moved the last of my web properties to my new VPS, backed up all the files on my MT site, and put it all in a safe place.
This AM, I started the process of canceling my account. I will technically have access to it until December 29, but I am done. The plug has been pulled.
As my domains come up for renewal, I will be moving them to a different registrar. By the end of 2014, I will be completely out of MT and the taint of GoDaddy.
I do wish the staff and team at MT luck, but I have had enough experience with GoDaddy to know that I want to have nothing to do with them, AT ALL.