Re: [cobalt-users] Need advice on Colocating or Self Location

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brent Sims wrote:

> Jeff, I hate seeing stuff like this. ATI, for example,
> installed their first server in the owners spare bedroom. Avy
> Freedman, the widely respected BGP guru whom I suspect you know,
> started his ISP in his basement. So did many others.

Yes I know Avi.  And I started with an ISDN line.  That was then, and
this is now.  All it takes is two clients downloading something from one
of your sites through a broadband connection and you're "busted".

> I also you know that you and I are about the same age and
> that we started playing with this stuff at about the same time. Thus
> I'm sure you remember the days when you didn't need passwords,
> firewalls or the like - when the thrill was simply having someone
> find your server - when everyone on what was to become the Internet
> would help one another regardless of whom they were or how stupid
> their ideas may have seemed at the time.

And I remember reading how you could use any email server if yours
couldn't get the connectivity you needed.

> Thinking like that is what brought us to this point.

I really believe it's a case of then vs now, and expectations.

> I think we've lost sight of what made all this possible and
> that pains me terribly. This is the land of milk and honey. Each and
> every day people all over the world all but sell their souls for a
> chance to come here so they can chase their dreams. They tend to dig
> in, doing what us that are fat and happy won't do, and they not only
> often succeed, they often do so in high style. I'm sure there are
> many on this list whose stories are similar to that I just wrote.
> 
> Killing dreams is not something I am inclined to do.

Nor do I want to kill dreams.  But nothing kills dreams faster than
setting something up and the customers don't come.

Today you can rent a dedicated server for us$100.  That's how my
ex-partner and I started about three and a half years ago, and he's up
to 3,000+ accounts.  But I don't think we could have done it from a DSL
line or ISDN three years ago, or now.

Maybe I'm just unlucky enough to live in So. California, where DSL is
extremely unreliable?  But I read horror stories from a lot of other
people as well.  That us$100 a month is less than the sDSL most people
will think of as a minimum for hosting.  And that often includes the
server.

Avi begin his ISP at home for the same reason I did, I'd bet... we
wanted a piece of connectivity in our homes, and that was a great way to
afford it.

But today, the odds are stacked against us, hosting is a commodity, and
people do compare.

> I did it - I created a successful facility based hosting
> company starting with nothing and no money and I'm am an idiot -
> if an idiot like me can do so can someone else.

You're not an idiot, Brent.

But still, that was then, and this is now.

I'd love to be able to start over, now, knowing what I know now, under
the same conditions I started hosting with back in 1994.  But I can't.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Linux and Cobalt/Sun/RaQ Consulting
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 778-9980  *  fax: (702) 548-9484