Dropbox is an interesting example, actually: they use deduplication to reduce storage requirements, which requires that different users' files cannot be encrypted under different keys. So, to keep their prices low, they -- for all intents and purposes -- do not encrypt your data separately from everyone elses' data.

That's one way to make a profit.

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/* TODO: need to add signature to posts */

Also, the description of dropbox is exaggerated. They only ever offered two gigs free by default (deduplicated, as Hoopy pointed out), rather than five, it was never particularly fast, they've never supported dozens of operating systems (even including mobile platforms they currently support only six). They also priced their non-free tiers reasonably, making the free tier a loss-leader with minimal cost to them. DigitalOcean, on the other hand, has questionable prices for all pricepoints, although I can see how margins would be larger the higher you go. Linode has shown, however, that the vast majority of customers are going to go for the lowest few packages.

[quote="Guspaz"]Also, the description of dropbox is exaggerated. They only ever offered two gigs free by default (deduplicated, as Hoopy pointed out), rather than five, it was never particularly fast, they've never supported dozens of operating systems (even including mobile platforms they currently support only six). They also priced their non-free tiers reasonably, making the free tier a loss-leader with minimal cost to them. DigitalOcean, on the other hand, has questionable prices for all pricepoints, although I can see how margins would be larger the higher you go. Linode has shown, however, that the vast majority of customers are going to go for the lowest few packages.[/quote]

Ok - so 2 gigs instead of 5; 6 OSs instead of 12. I don't see how this impacts my point.

I'm still wondering about your defensiveness here. I understand fully that Linode provides a great service; I have been with them for many years and have always been satisfied. I have simply noticed -- as apparently have many others -- that Linode's price/performance is starting to get noticeably out-of-whack with the up-and-comers. You yourself have acknowledged that we haven't seen legitimate hardware upgrades for about 2 years.

Regardless, the most salient point to me is that I haven't really seen anything wrong with DigitalOcean (other than promising unlimited bandwidth then quickly retreating). You can drum up as much fear as you want (and you seem to enjoy it), but the simple truth is that I can move a disk image over there, for minimal cost and very little risk, and save a lot of money and get similar/better performance. Yes, they might fold up -- and so might Linode -- but from what I see, their financial backers and technical advisers appear top notch.

The bottom line is: It seems entirely reasonable to me to ask why, when hardware prices decrease exponentially year-after-year, is Linode falling behind?

For what it's worth, I was with Slicehost for years before they got greedy, their prices drifted ever behind, and they got overtaken by an upstart called Linode. There were just as many -- if not more -- fanboys over there defending them. Is it so impossible to believe Linode could eventually head in that direction?

FWIW, this is DigitalOcean's response to whether they are "too good to be true." It essentially boils down to: (1) We have been around for 2 years already, and (2) We are currently profitable.

[QUOTE]
too good to be true?
I have been using Dreamhost ($10/month) for over 8 years. Still with them. Ten days back I sign-ed up for Linode-512 and I am quite impressed. I don't mind paying 20 bucks a month for VPS --- 24GB disk and 1TB transfer meets my needs but I prefer 1GB of RAM. Then I heard about DigitalOcean and signed up for it yesterday to check them out. While not as polished as Linode --- which is to be expected --- I found it quite good. I could do a side-by-side comparison of running nginx, php-fpm, https etc and the 1 core of DigitalOcean was not limiting. I have the option of trying the 1GB and 2GB plans (2 cores), pay for what I use, and still pay the same or less than what I would pay for Linode.

So, what is the problem? The problem is that it is too good to be true. DigitalOcean must be losing money at these prices and what happens when the seed money runs out say in 6 or 8 months? $1.25 per week wouldn't probably pay even the power bill. Lots of money will be required to expand beyond NY and Amsterdam. Linode would typically give free upgrades every June and if they upgrade the RAM to 1 GB and make backups free then it would make Linode look quite good. Linode has been around for 8 years, they may charge more but the probability of them being around a year or more from now is almost 100%. My worry is that if DigitalOcean folds without warning a year from now and doesn't give option to copy your data it would be a problem. So we have to have frequent backup outside of DigitalOcean to account for this.

Linode is putting forty 512M nodes on a server. Is DigitalOcean putting 160 nodes?

Babu
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6 Replies
We're going to be celebrating our two year anniversary this coming June so while we haven't been around for 8 years, we have been at this for a bit of time.

While I can't comment on the specifics of our business I can tell you that we are profitable and we are looking to provide the best service possible to our customers and also to continuously improve on the product.

Aside from that I would say sign up, use the product, and let us know how we can improve.

Thanks!

Answered by raiyu
February 24th, 2013 06:12
[/QUOTE]

[url]https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/too-good-to-be-true[/url]

During the time that I tried their service, I had hours of downtime. So much so that it got to the point of them just giving me my whole month free. Granted that's only $5, but come on? HOURS OF DOWN TIME?

Also note, that this is the same company that failed miserably before because an ex-employee got upset and started deleting everything.

I try not to be a Linode fanboy, and I was very interested in DO because the price is so attractive. I don't care if they're profitable or not, I bet 1&1 is profitable too. There's something to be said about a company that treats its customer so well like Linode does.

Yes, we all wish they'd upgrade more stuff. The only issue I have with Linode as of late is that the VM's aren't on a SAN. There are no live migrations like you have at DO. This also limits Linode's hard drive capacity.

Again, to me reliability and a company that has enough integrity to let us argue about their competitors on their forum is worth the extra money.

Does that mean Linode should just sit back and enjoy its current position? No. Competition is good for consumers. I hope that DO makes Linode an even better company and pushes them beyond what they thought they could do.

All this talk about them is quite dumb. If you want to go there because of the price, go right ahead. You have limited features (cough cough no IPv6 or IP failover) and you have tons of people who run "questionable" things that get DDoS'd constantly. If you want to go, just go. Why stay here trying to get us to convince you? I think that's the "fighting for Linode" you're getting. I don't think anyone understands why you're still here if you really want to move to DO so bad.

@deadwalrus

You make a few salient points - but for FSM's sake, learn how to freaking post.

Is it "that" hard to figure out the quoting system on this forum?

I'm just a scientist not a code monkey (read today's The Daily WTF - they rip PhD's pretty good in today's comments) and yet I manage to figure out how to quote a previous post (I've even mastered nested quotes).

Proof your posts so you don't look like a dumbass.

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Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

[quote="vonskippy"]@deadwalrus

You make a few salient points - but for FSM's sake, learn how to freaking post.

Is it "that" hard to figure out the quoting system on this forum?

I'm just a scientist not a code monkey (read today's [url=http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/A-CSV-is-as-Good-as-RAM,-Right.aspx]The Daily WTF[/url] - they rip PhD's pretty good in today's comments) and yet I manage to figure out how to quote a previous post (I've even mastered nested quotes).

Proof your posts so you don't look like a dumbass.[/quote]

Ok wise one, teach me. I simply hit the "Quote" button and that's what happens. If that doesn't work -- which it apparently does not -- I am not going to spend time digging through the help to figure that out, because quite frankly, I don't care.

Then why are you still here? lol

[quote="tubaguy50035"]During the time that I tried their service, I had hours of downtime. So much so that it got to the point of them just giving me my whole month free. Granted that's only $5, but come on? HOURS OF DOWN TIME?

Also note, that this is the same company that failed miserably before because an ex-employee got upset and started deleting everything.
[/quote]

This is the sort of argument that is convincing. I am, like I said, quite pleased with Linode, and have been for years. Whatever minor annoyances I may have with seeing competitors beat them on price is adequately addressed by posts like this, which point out first-hand experience of down times. I am willing to pay a premium, as I expect most are, to avoid that sort of issue.

My prior comments were directed to the non-first-hand experience FUD that I saw getting thrown around. Not convincing and not productive, and comes off as rampant Linode fanboyism.

Since the tags look to be in order, I suspect you probably have 'Disable BBcode' checked.

If they've been around for two years, why do they still seem like a beta service? The first time anybody actually tried to use significant amounts of bandwidth on the unlimited plans, they got rid of unlimited plans. Does that mean that for two years, no customer ever tried to use a substantial amount of bandwidth?

I'm glad I was able to help. I encourage you to try it out yourself. We can piss and moan in this thread all day, or we can actually try things out and see if they fit our needs. DO will give you a free trial credit if you ask for it. I encourage you to have another box pinging the DO box and watch it go down for hours.

Good point. Although to be fair, he was running a seedbox to try to max out bandwidth. I agree they should not be advertising it if they don't intend to allow people to do it.

^^nicely formatted^^

See it wasn't rocket science.

_________________
Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

Nope. Not sure why "Disable BBCode" is always checked for me by default -- I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

Oh well.