Ubercart

tanji,

costs and red tape must be high wherever??? you are. but if you already have the server experience i can't imagine how much higher the cost is going to be going that route.

It all basically comes down to doing the math. Especially over a year period or some other longer period. the reliable vps providers are really rather expensive from my past checking. when you consider you only get like 2-10GB Disk space and x amount of ram on a SHARED system, usually a celeron or some low end server, it just doesn't pay.

Dedicated gets more pricey. Do the math and you can buy your own kick butt server for what they will charge for a year. Again, they'll often have you running on celeron's or some other less than stellar platform. After the first year (your initial server investment), you save big time. The first year is usually a wash.

The beauty of colo is that you don't have anyone in the chain of command who can fail you responsibility wise (for the most part). That sounds like your biggest complaint above. The colo hosting is only responsible for providing a climate controlled room, a fast and reliable pipe to your server, theft/security, and fire prevention.

The caveat is that the responsibility is all yours now. BUT THAT MEANS YOU HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER YOUR SYSTEM AT ANY HOUR OF THE DAY. No more configuration hastles/limitations. No more hw performance issues - you're the only one running on your box - it's not shared unless you decide so. Better security IF you know what you're doing.

THE BIGGEST COST ADVANTAGE TO COLO IS IF YOU START RUNNING MULTIPLE SITES. That's where it just makes too much sense. The cost of multiple std hosting accounts or VPS just starts adding up too much. And administration panels provided by these providers to manage multiple accounts is just too slow and limiting.

Finally. I imagine GoDaddy is probably fine for a simple php / static html hosting account. It all comes down to need.

However, every experience i've had with them and their business model plays out like a bait and switch. It's deceptive and not in good spirit. I try not to honor and perpetuate that which i know to be dishonest. people in general (and i'm no exception) have all bought into the lowest price theory to varying degrees. we shop based on price and (mostly) price only. service, quality and honesty take back seats. It's killing the spirit of the world i live in. where hype is greater than substance. I'm trying not to reward these clowns. karma will catch up to that brain trust anyway.

the previous paragraph is obviously a little off topic but i throw it out there for perusal. i firmly believe that if you have a real passion in what you do and approach it with honesty, it reveals itself and comes back to you. that includes the stores we all create with uc. If profit is the main motive, you may or may not make a lot of dough but happiness is likely to elude the store owner. When you dig what you do / sell, you usually are more successful at it and if not, well at least you're happy .

Bob Parsons (mr godaddy ceo) is probably loaded to the hilt but i wonder how happy he really he is. I think he'd be more happy (or at least i would ), if he gave up some of that phat paycheck and used it to make his services / practices better .