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by yapcguy 4693 days ago
Exactly. There are lots of providers on LowEndBox.com and many have them have SSDs etc.

DigitalOcean are only special because they "play" the start-up game - lots of hype, marketing, get journalists on their side to write nice things about them, etc. - and this gives investors something they can bite into.

The difference between DigitalOcean and other low end providers is that DigitalOcean isn't interested in making money as a business, they're happy to lose money as long as they get more in the front door from investors. Meanwhile other low end providers look more like lifestyle businesses and thus growing slowly and organically.
3 comments
milkshakes 4693 days ago
> The difference between DigitalOcean and other low end providers is that DigitalOcean isn't interested in making money as a business

Except for that part where as they grow they develop economies of scale that allow them to undercut the "lots of providers". There's more than one way to play the game.

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yapcguy 4693 days ago
My personal opinion is that it just feels - given all the hype - that DigitalOcean are not here to build the best possible hosting provider for developers.

I just don't feel there is anything special about DigitalOcean, nothing that indicates to me that the founders really care about the technical nuances and details of server hosting.

Instead, my impression is that the company will continue to be pimped and supported until a profitable exit is reached. It seems to be all about money. It's hosting today, but tomorrow it could be nursing homes.

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snowwrestler 4693 days ago
They're already undercutting a lot of much bigger providers.

It seems to me that economy of scale does not translate so well to hosting companies. Sure you might be able to get slightly better pricing on servers and connectivity, but complexity has a cost, and it goes up as you get bigger.

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yogo 4693 days ago
No one knows what the future holds. With great value and service there could be a price change or they could be acquired (a la slicehost), but I think it's very hard to depend on some of providers in that price range with poor connectivity and support using that crappy whmcs.
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pbreit 4693 days ago
The marketing (you call it hype) is definitely part of the success. You could envision DO becoming a Rackspace but not so with many/all LEB providers.
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