Ask HN: How can hosting companies be improved?

[jasondecastro]

There are a bunch of these everywhere but they're all exactly identical. Except for companies like DigitalOcean, but it's still not much different.

What could you suggest that would make a hosting company different and better while still maintaining the basic principle, which is the distribution of servers?

[drchiu]

(1) I think similar to Digital Ocean, better backend admin panels that's simple to use yet powerful enough to do most remote admin tasks.

(2) Providing some sort of backup service that's cheap and easy to use. Along with this, provide a way to restore that's easy as well.

(3) Online chat support. Although I think this might be a little harder since this is really an issue of economics.

[mod]

At least some hosts already have online chat support.

Bluehost, a "traditional" host I've had to work with plenty in the past, has good chat support.

I believe Dreamhost does as well.

Hosts dealing more with non-php applications (Heroku, DO), I guess, don't have it. But I've never needed to ask them for it, either.

[kushti]

In the post-Snowden world, cloud hosting outside the US(and now possessed by US-based company) really matters.