I've been in the hosting industry for some time, and I'm always appalled at how quickly stories like this, regarding hosting providers, escalate. It's such a contrast between startups in this community that make a mistake ("I'm sure they just made a mistake, and they'll get it cleared up"), versus a hosting company ("they're incompetent, dangerous loons and I'm never giving them my business"). This attitude prevails beyond Hacker News, and finds itself into support tickets at hosting providers. I can't tell you how much support tickets made me resent the customers; the gloves come off when there's a mistake. I've personally been called much worse than has been shown in this thread thus far after I helped people in tickets.
Honestly, I have to ask this -- why do those in the technical community here feel like their hosting company is automatically out to get them? Hosting companies are drowning in policies, and acting upon DMCA complaints is a particularly dangerous area because the DMCA is very vague, particularly in the expediency of provider action. Is the hatred for hosting companies rooted in their ability to take you offline very quickly?
I deleted out of a thread here where I asked a similar question, because this is obviously a controversial topic, based upon those comments' scores within minutes. I just wish I understood why it's never okay for a hosting company to mess up, and why it's okay to attack them personally when they do.
Of course, having been on the other side of this line, I don't actually think ServerBeach erred here but I'm also hesitant to draw a conclusion without both sides of the story. It's an unfortunate situation for both sides, and this sort of thing never makes it better.
I've worked for an ISP and I'm working on a shared hosting offering now. I think there are manifold issues between service providers and customers, few of which have anything to do with this particular case.
1. The race to the bottom in pricing has had two effects: it has turned hosting into a commodity, and customer service has suffered. As an immediate effect, you get customers who aren't loyal to you because they can pay the same or less somewhere else, and you anger more customers because you don't have the money to hire good staff.
2. Lack of technical ability on the customers' end. Everybody wants a website now, but not so many people understand all of the technology involved, so you end up with issues that are technically the customer's fault, but look to the customer like they're your fault. Worse still is that any attempt to explain the issue to the customer just comes across as unhelpful technical jargon. Service providers really need to take a default "We like all of our customers (even the pathological ones)" position, or they won't be able to cope with this.
3. Hosting is largely a dinosaur. VPS hosting is the biggest thing in the industry in a long time; during the race to the bottom, way too many hosting providers got complacent and stopped inventing new software and systems, and just crammed as many customers as they could onto their servers. Customers really resented that, and I've talked to so few hosting providers at any regional conferences that ever really got that.
All of these add up to what looks to customers like a business that just doesn't care, and customers are eager to give that attitude right back. The question that hosting providers should be asking themselves is, "What's to love about our service?"
I happen to agree with the general opinion that hosting providers are in such a position of responsibility that they can't really afford to make mistakes like this. Most (not all!) startups get a pass because it's accepted that they're a small team building a service; if you build your business on top of that, well, buyer beware. But, if you choose to be a hosting provider, you're taking on some serious responsibility. You're no longer a small team, you're a commodity service that web-facing business absolutely live and die on.
Couldn't agree more with most of your points. Almost everybody defaults to assuming their broken Wordpress install is the provider's fault. I'm not sure that I agree with any company being beyond mistakes.
Try not thinking of it as being "beyond mistakes"; try to think of it as "not having the luxury of being treated like a startup".
What would your visceral response be to a brand new bank that makes the news because it got robbed due to faulty locks, and oh-by-the-way they haven't gotten around to being insured yet? Is it fair that a bank is held to different standards than Mom & Pop's Corner Shoppe?
For most people -- maybe just about everybody -- a hosting company is the online equivalent of a bank. And that's totally fair.
The problem here seems to have been that ServerBeach didn't bother to make a phone call before shutting off the servers of a not insignificant customer, for what turns out not to have been a very good reason.
If they let the customer know that this really was just a mistake and is not their policy, okay, well, it's unfortunate but maybe not fatal to the relationship. But if it is their policy -- and until they say otherwise, it's natural to assume that it is -- then I can see why people would have a problem with that.
> The problem here seems to have been that ServerBeach didn't bother to make a phone call before shutting off the servers of a not insignificant customer.
Well, two things:
Most hosting companies don't call for anything, and most don't even take a number. I've dealt with many. Amazon, in particular, won't call you for anything. (I know because I work at an account several orders of magnitude larger than OP that hosts with Amazon.) Google won't call you before they terminate your Gmail, as has been shown before, and that's simply because the resources required to maintain a call center don't make sense for (the almost entirely automated) hosting industry. Margins are low. Calling every customer that receives a DMCA complaint would, at an average-size host, require probably a dozen employees just making calls. This is seriously busy work, and people outside the hosting industry don't see that.
The other thing is that we keep saying "pull the plug," "shut off servers," etc -- that's a pretty drastic intervention, and I'd be shocked if that was what was done. More than likely, the IP address was just dropped from the Internet, which is rather quickly reversible. The same thing will happen if someone points a DDoS botnet at you and starts disrupting service for other customers as collateral.
> for what turns out not to have been a very good reason.
ServerBeach does not have the liberty to debate whether a reason is good or not. A valid DMCA complaint is a valid DMCA complaint; to remain "carrier neutral" and preserve safe harbor for other customers, a hosting company must act as if every complaint is valid and enforceable.
Once a hosting company makes decisions about complaints and selectively enforces, safe harbor goes bye bye and the copyright holder claims ownership of the hosting company. Then many, many customers beyond the original customer are affected, which is a really big deal at a hosting company (scope).
> But if it is their policy -- and until they say otherwise, it's natural to assume that it is -- then I can see why people would have a problem with that.
I don't disagree about having a problem with a policy. I do, however, detest the directions these conversations take. Look around this thread. I don't see a lot of "that's a bum policy," I see a lot of "what horrible people" and implications that the employees are incompetent, and so on. I do take issue with that.
I'm neither arguing for or against the reactions you describe, but from that perspective, it's worse when a hosting company screws up because other companies are relying on them for business. When most startups screw up, the scope damage is limited to their direct customers, and the amount of damage is limited to the price of the startup's service.
That's a thin argument, because it really depends on what the startup does. There are plenty of turn-and-burn startups that have become mission-critical for other startups, I'm sure.
I would love to hear even a theoretical version of this story where pulling the plug so quickly is not a error on ServerBreach's part. Since you bothered to create a throwaway just to post this, you might as well offer some specifics. As it stands, it just sounds like you are trolling.
The best justification I can think of is that they deal with such a large volume of requests that they simply don't have the time or attention or legal latitude to be skeptical of DMCA claims.
I don't really find that sufficient, but it's all I can imagine.
Honestly, I have to ask this -- why do those in the technical community here feel like their hosting company is automatically out to get them? Hosting companies are drowning in policies, and acting upon DMCA complaints is a particularly dangerous area because the DMCA is very vague, particularly in the expediency of provider action. Is the hatred for hosting companies rooted in their ability to take you offline very quickly?
I deleted out of a thread here where I asked a similar question, because this is obviously a controversial topic, based upon those comments' scores within minutes. I just wish I understood why it's never okay for a hosting company to mess up, and why it's okay to attack them personally when they do.
Of course, having been on the other side of this line, I don't actually think ServerBeach erred here but I'm also hesitant to draw a conclusion without both sides of the story. It's an unfortunate situation for both sides, and this sort of thing never makes it better.