Hint: your graphs aren't drawing what you wrote. For example, your first graph is a log of a negative exponential curve, not an exponential decrease. Something totally different, entirely.

Put it another way; if computing power doubles every 2 years (to paraphrase and misquote Moore) then the cost of computing halves. That's a negative exponential, not an exponential decrease.

Here's another way; draw a typical exponential increasing curve, y=e^x; an exponential decreasing curve (what you wrote) would be y=-(e^x). However, what you actually meant is something closer to y=e^{-x}.

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Actually I documented earlier in this thread what increases there have been

Linode 64 & 1.5 GB Disk FREE  05/01/2004 - 04/30/2005    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 64 & 1.5 GB Disk FREE  05/01/2005 - 04/30/2006    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 80 & 1.5 GB Disk FREE  05/01/2006 - 04/30/2007    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 256 & 4 GB Disk FREE   05/01/2007 - 04/30/2008    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 360 & 5 GB Disk FREE      05/01/2008 - 04/30/2009    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 360 & 8 GB Disk FRE05/01/2009 - 04/30/2010    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 360 & 8 GB Disk FRE05/01/2010 - 04/30/2011    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 512 & 8 GB Disk FRE05/01/2011 - 04/30/2012    $0.00  $239.40
Linode 512 & 10 GB Disk FR05/01/2012 - 04/30/2013    $0.00  $239.40

(the free disk is 50% of the allocated disk... up until this year, where it seems the 20% addition didn't also fall into the grandfathered accounts).

Some years we get memory, some years we get disk, some years we get both. In the past 4 to 5 years my server has gone from 15Gb (5/1/2008) to 34Gb (today). So 126% increase over 4 to 5 years.

You were saying?

_________________
Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Way to try to hyper-parse to justify your math-fail. Unfortunately, your attempt is counter to the plain-and-ordinary meaning of the term "exponentially decreasing", which I submit means "decreasing according to an exponential function." Which is exactly what has happened.

Or -- *to put it another way* -- price/gig is the inverse of gig/price, which is exponentially increasing. But whatever.



Glad you are happy with that. Meanwhile HDD price/gig has roughly followed Moore's law. That is, price/gig has halved every 18 months or so. Considering you appear to be challenged at calculating exponentially decreasing functions, I'll do it for you: If Linode had followed suit, you would have enjoyed a ~400% increase, give or take.

Ah the old "read what I meant, not what I wrote" gag.

Hint: the inverse of exponentially increasing is _not_ exponentially decreasing; that's the opposite. "Inverse" != "Opposite". You keep using words, but don't seem to know what they mean.

Ne'er mind. One day you'll learn.

And now you've gone from "20% in 5 years" to "oh, well, yeah, OK, but that's not enough".

Back in the old days of Usenet people like you were called trolls. We would have fun taunting you. I'm explicitly laughing at you _because_ of this.

But now I'm bored. Everything you've written in response to me was according to my script. You're too predictable.

Oh how I yearn for the old days of Usenet when trolls had a couple of brain-cells...

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Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

I'm just posting here to troll the IRC channel through the linbot. Why won't this thread die.

I recommend a chiropractor for that cat - asap.

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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.

The costs of hard disk storage have fallen massively for cheap domestic hard drives. 15k RPM enterprise drives and enterprise SSDs are still very expensive, as are hardware RAID controllers, and the costs of paying someone to replace the failed drives. Professional storage people say you don't pay for disk space, you get it for free. What you pay for is performance and reliability.

Also the cost of electricity has gone up significantly since Linode started.

But I do agree with your point that you want more stuff for less money. Linode is being beaten on price quite badly by digitalocean and they have to respond.

You just said it yourself, you pay for performance and reliability.



...

The amount of neurotic trollish thread-derailing speaks volumes.

Faster Nginx box.

25% of the price.

...

Anyway, after a bit of research I quickly discovered that Linode are in large-part running hardware that is 3-4+ years old. Which undermines the claim that DO can't sweat their assets for 5 years to generate a healthy ROI, does it not?

Secondly, I'm very lucky with Linode. The London operation seems to be rock solid and I've not had a minute's downtime. But people hosting in the US (Fremont?) don't seem to be quite as lucky. It sounds like may have had as much downtime in the last two years as the average DO customer.

Is Linode's performance and reliability worth 4 times more than digitalocean's? Linode has been stable as a rock but it's not like digitalocean has terrible reliability.

My DNS and mail servers have to stay up, but if my personal PBX system goes down for a few hours I'm the only one that will notice. For some things good enough at a quarter of the price is the right decision. Times are hard and money is tight, the place I work at can't even afford paper towels for the toilets.

We use "toilet paper" here in the states. Using paper towels sounds like it must have been, ahhh, rough on you.

James

We have toilet paper, I meant the cheap paper towels you dry your hands with after washing them.

These things:
http://www.amazon.com/SCOTT-Multifold-Paper-Towels-Carton/dp/B002XJGYPQ/ref=sr_1_18?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1361993301&sr=1-18

Apparently we stopped paying the supplier so they stopped delivering.

I've had to go on raids of different floors to steal what few paper towels still exist. It's like mad max with paper towels instead of gas, staring me as Mel Gibson and nobody who can act in any of the other roles. At knocking off time we all reminisce about the before times, in the long long ago, back when we could afford paper goods.


This thread has gone impressively off-topic.

Not really. From what I've noticed, Linode doesn't buy current-generation hardware. So if a server is running 3-4-year-old hardware, the server is probably 1-3 years old. That's a far cry from running for 5 years. DO also uses SSDs, which are far more expensive than Linode's hard drives, and have only recently started gaining a reputation for lasting more than a couple years.

(Hello, IRC. I loved the cat pictures, BTW.)

Edit: By the way, I don't have any particular opinion here. I just like an argument. For one thing, it's quite an assumption that DO needs 5 years to make a profit.

Edit: IRC also points out that if DO uses crappy hard drives and Linode uses ENTERPRISE ones, I'm probably wrong about the price difference.

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Matt Nordhoff (aka Peng on IRC)