Pool regarding new service offer

c1vhosting

Dear LES members!
I’m Luca from C1V.

I’m here to get a feedback from you about a new service we could provide.
I’m talking about a lifetime VPS plan and a lifetime Web Hosting plan.

deank

Nigh is the end.

Erisa

Lifetime webhosting is enough of a red flag unless it's a scarce deal and has reasoning behind it.

A lifetime VPS is just asking for problems. There is no way to do it in a way that doesn't guarantee the provider loses money over time without setting a price nobody will buy. Stick to cheap annual deals.

AlwaysSkint

"Pool regarding new service offer": Swimming with the sharks

james50a

Might be interesting but would want to see an insurance option. Ie pay 2$more and if plan disappears in 2y or whatever get a guaranteed payout.

Mason

Lifetime web hosting, maybe... but you really need to have some established, recurring revenue from other products or your costs will slowly take over your profits.

Don't think I've ever seen a lifetime vps offering work out. CloudAtCost comes to mind, but has been a complete clusterfuck from what I can tell (discontinued product lines, intro of yearly "maintenance fees", etc).

c1vhosting

Thank you, I'm just getting some feedback about how could it sound for you.
Obviously it wouldn't be a cheap option, but something where you can be sure you'll have that service for a long term.

chris

Avoid it like the plague, as both provider and client 🤣

vyas

Pool = Deadpool ??

deank

Even a marriage that is supposed to be for lifetime doesn't ducking work out.

So, nothing else will. Tax sure follows you until the end though.

chris

@deank said:
Even a marriage that is supposed to be for lifetime doesn't ducking work out.

So, nothing else will. Tax sure follows you until the end though.

At least you have LES

deank

We are all les here.

jtk

Seems gimmicky and unnecessary for you to try to live up to. Plus, for many low-end customer who's been around awhile, any lifetime VPS plan is going to conjure up only negative associations with one notorious at cost "provider" .

coo

Web hosting and VPS has lot of recurring expenses, I am not sure how lifetime plans works.
Unless you plan to have one VPS in a node set aside for lifetime, that could work provided you are actually making profit from that node to cover free service.

Other option could be you charge them 10-12 years of service upfront, so that way it can cover costs for years to come. You can put that money to good use so that you will be able to continue providing free service after 10 years may be? Invest some place good ? But still not sure it will be profitable given the inflation and price hikes.

vyas

@coo said:
Web hosting and VPS has lot of recurring expenses, I am not sure how lifetime plans works.
Unless you plan to have one VPS in a node set aside for lifetime, that could work provided you are actually making profit from that node to cover free service.

Other option could be you charge them 10-12 years of service upfront, so that way it can cover costs for years to come. You can put that money to good use so that you will be able to continue providing free service after 10 years may be? Invest some place good ? But still not sure it will be profitable given the inflation and price hikes.

@MikePT has run offers for shared hosting for @ 3 years now, a couple of other providers I know have similar offers. They might have worked out their numbers well before the launch. With increasing energy prices, maybe LT unit economics might differ. Maybe fixed term (3 years/ 5 years??) might make more sense. But heaved forbid not the Siteground / Host mantis way- increasing renewal rates by > 300%

Note: Since this is not an offer thread by OP but a discussion on Lifetime deals, taking the liberty to mention likely competitors.

ralf

Your company has only been here and on OGF since July. How old is the company? How do we even know the company will last the year, let alone 5 or 10 years?

The only way this could sustainable operate is if your operating costs AND profit were less than the interest of the principal you got from each customer and invested it. Even assuming a very generous 7% interest rate, you'd need to be charging more than 20 times an annual cost to break even assuming your costs stay the same and that there's no inflation. That'd be a hard sell even if your company was well known and had a good history given the current economic uncertainty.

There's a reason even governments usually only issue 1 year, 5 year and 10 year bonds, and in theory they're much more stable than any company.

Janevski

I don't plan on dying that soon.

c1vhosting

I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

xaoc

No, I would like one for free.

deank

Push, do not listen to the naysayers.

Go for it. They are just ducking jealous. Such a negative world we live in.

stromonic

You're Selecting The Way to Bankruptcy, BTW.

Francisco

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

Nekki

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

In a hypothetical world where you sell lifetime plans, how much do you sell them for, Fran?

c1vhosting

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said:
I mean, it's not a "cheap" option.
We have already funds and making profits from our own Datacenter.

Our STARTER plan would cost about €450 to be really lifetime. It's not a cheap option.

You have a few problems here.

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.
• Your hosting division doesn't have enough age on it to try to back that.
• This all smells bad given you're doing 50% off discounts on things too. It just comes off as desperation.

To add to #3 some more, you aren't giving any backing to the idea that the brand is financially stable. Any time I see a company pushing such a large discount so early into their life, it tells me they're either violating most advertising laws (offer the public at an insane price so you can put an even more insane discount to make it look "better"), or you're hurting and need the sales.

Neither look great.

Francisco

Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

cold

what if u die in 1 year.. will my VPS still be running ?

ralf

@Francisco said:

• Your starter plan is 1.67EUR, meaning you're asking someone to prepay 22 years before it'll break even for them. No ones going to do that.

Even worse...

https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/2000

$450 in the S&P in 2000 would be worth $1832.94 today. You wouldn't quite get that if you took out $1.90 a month, but it's clear putting the money in the stock money seems like a good move.

Besides, think what the VPS specs you could get for 2 bucks 5 years ago. That 1 core of an unspecific CPU with 1GB RAM isn't going be that useful in 5 or years time, and if your money was still your money you could change deals any point you like.

Francisco

@c1vhosting said: Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

You've offered hosting since 2008? Can you show that? I see your parents website made mention of (printed?) media and things like that, but the hosting was showing much later dates.

@Nekki said:
In a hypothetical world where you sell lifetime plans, how much do you sell them for, Fran?

I legit don't know. There's a lot of costs that are in the process of going parabolic on us. Power & IP addresses are both climbing, and I don't think either will come back down to earth, there's just no reason to.

You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Francisco

vyas

@Francisco said:
You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Francisco

One of the ongoing debates in the "Lifetime SaaS" space (Appsumo, Dealify, etc...)
Why do so many companies shaft their early customers/ buyers of LIfetime plans?

Investment for further rounds and/ or acquisition by other companies brings forth the point you mention.

In a nutshell,
Increasing Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is a sign of growth. Large base of Lifetime customers is sign of stagnation.

nishantk

Last lifetime offer i grabbed lasted for year.
In my experience "Lifetime = Company's lifetime"
It could be a month , 6mo or the year.

vyas

@nishantk said:
Last lifetime offer i grabbed lasted for year.
In my experience "Lifetime = Company's lifetime"
It could be a month , 6mo or the year.

Lifetime can be least of
-Product or service (eg deal is for Datacenter X in city Y, if DC or city change - deal ends)
-Company (can get closed, acquired, rebranded)
-Customer’s life

ralf

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said: Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

You've offered hosting since 2008? Can you show that? I see your parents website made mention of (printed?) media and things like that, but the hosting was showing much later dates.

From whois.it:

Domain:             c1vhosting.it
Status:             clientDeleteProhibited
Signed:             no
Created:            2020-09-17 16:52:37
Last Update:        2022-04-23 18:06:28
Expire Date:        2023-04-23

Looks like registered in September 2020, allowed to lapse, restored in April 2022.

You also make your company toxic to any suitor. The #1 question I've always asked companies, and many others do too, is "how heavy is a brand on yearly offers?", nevermind lifetime offers. I think if a potential suitor finds out you have even a few lifetime deals, they'll walk away.

Really good point.

Lifetime deals make a bit more sense for aggregated resources like VPNs because you can cut back on your expenditure as people stop using the service, and in any case the ongoing cost per customer isn't that high, but even then it's still a long term liability.

Francisco

@ralf said: even then it's still a long term liability.

Right, even on a big VPN company you wouldnt' want that high of a % of your users being lifetimes, unless you fully intend to yeet the brand in a few years.

At some point you run out of customers to sell those plans to (because everyone has one, etc) and you're broke. Nekki pointed out some VPN host that was doing lifetime deals and his own expectation was the brand lasted a couple years at best.

Anyway, back on topic. I think it's a bad idea. Maybe once as a crazy special/giveaway, but not as any part of your business plan.

Francisco

foxone

@Francisco said:

@c1vhosting said: Hi,
that is wrong. The company exists since 2008, so there’s an age. Thank you anyway for your feedback, I appreciate it

You've offered hosting since 2008? Can you show that? I see your parents website made mention of (printed?) media and things like that, but the hosting was showing much later dates.

No, he just recycled his mother's book publishing VAT ID.
He's pretty famous in the Italian Telegram and hosting community for lamering and claiming to have insane things such as a "75TBPS layer 7 DDoS protection", which he funnily tried to sell to Hetzner and MIX-IT/GARR employees (and was, in fact, just a php file which set a cookie using js). After this he moved to pester us asking for help in local Proxmox groups on how to provision network and setup BGP and firewalls n stuff.

He only owns a /24 block right now and is using TIM SPARKLE, probably getting connection through a TIM business fiber (which in Italy is commonly limited to 2.5gbps but I hope it's at least 10gbit, asym ofc)

Last year I tried to visit the DC when i was in Pomezia for (other) work related issues but only to find an apartment building. I wonder if he has wooden racks too

c1vhosting

@foxone said: Last year I tried to visit the DC when i was in Pomezia for (other) work related issues but only to find an apartment building. I wonder if he has wooden racks too

This sounds a bit a bullsh*t, as the datacenter was launched a few months ago.

@foxone said: 75TBPS layer 7 DDoS protection", which he funnily tried to sell to Hetzner

Can you show me some proofs about this? I can't remember actually. Maybe it's another bullsh*t?

@foxone said: After this he moved to pester us asking for help in local Proxmox groups on how to provision network and setup BGP and firewalls n stuff.

Show me everything! Thank you

@foxone said: He only owns a /24 block

All you wrote is wrong, even this. We have about like a /20 IPv4.

chris

@c1vhosting said:

@foxone said: Last year I tried to visit the DC when i was in Pomezia for (other) work related issues but only to find an apartment building. I wonder if he has wooden racks too

This sounds a bit a bullsh*t, as the datacenter was launched a few months ago.

@foxone said: 75TBPS layer 7 DDoS protection", which he funnily tried to sell to Hetzner

Can you show me some proofs about this? I can't remember actually. Maybe it's another bullsh*t?

Just show everyone the pictures and prove them wrong! 😁

carlin0

c1vhosting

@carlin0 said:

Yeah!

foxone

@c1vhosting said:

@foxone said: Last year I tried to visit the DC when i was in Pomezia for (other) work related issues but only to find an apartment building. I wonder if he has wooden racks too

This sounds a bit a bullsh*t, as the datacenter was launched a few months ago.

@foxone said: 75TBPS layer 7 DDoS protection", which he funnily tried to sell to Hetzner

Can you show me some proofs about this? I can't remember actually. Maybe it's another bullsh*t?

Layer 7 (websites), the maximum theoretical protection is 75TBPS

We checked better about your ddos protection, and conveniently you posted all of it on your github

https://github.com/kevcussick/AntiDDoS/blob/master/antiddos.php

Where you also commonly bashed other people for their antiddos systems

And proceeded to show off on Telegram how you were DDoSing them (with 200mbit tops, according to one of the attacked)

@foxone said: After this he moved to pester us asking for help in local Proxmox groups on how to provision network and setup BGP and firewalls n stuff.

Show me everything! Thank you

This is a part of a conversation where i was trying to help you on how to mount a partition on /etc/fstab on one of your nodes, and you were absolutely failing at it

And you locked yourself out of that node by destroying the root partition

"Why does it go into rescue mode after a reboot?"

@foxone said: He only owns a /24 block

All you wrote is wrong, even this. We have about like a /20 IPv4.

No. That /20 was a block from Seflow, not yours.
https://bgp.he.net/AS212271#_prefixes

Back when we asked you for a test ip, first of all you replied with:

"Our network is Tier-1 with direct peering to all internet exchanges"

Then you gave us 185.36.72.1 on Telegram (I've since deleted the private chat, tho) which was obviously from https://server.it

I'm sorry if this comes out as very confused, but it looks like you've deleted most traces so most things i have about you are now forwards and screenshots and not the original messages

c1vhosting

@foxone said: I'm sorry if this comes out as very confused, but it looks like you've deleted most traces so most things i have about you are now forwards and screenshots and not the original messages

Wow, it seems that you are a bit desperate to find excuses for your "unprovable" accusations.
Except the last livechat, I can't find "C1V" on what you're referring to. Do not, for convenience, put questions asked on public groups with work to denigrate it (question asked 2 years ago 😅)

When I tell you we have the equivalent of a /20 IPv4, that's because that's the way it is. Believe it or not, I don't care what you think.

Apparently you speak as a non-customer, moving some "prejudices" and totally fortuitous thoughts.
Besides, what you sent proves nothing, really nothing, of what you claim in the message written above. This proves your unreliability of what you were claiming.
I will be happy to continue the conversation with you in private.

foxone

@c1vhosting said:

@foxone said: I'm sorry if this comes out as very confused, but it looks like you've deleted most traces so most things i have about you are now forwards and screenshots and not the original messages

Wow, it seems that you are a bit desperate to find excuses for your "unprovable" accusations.
Except the last livechat, I can't find "C1V" on what you're referring to. Do not, for convenience, put questions asked on public groups with work to denigrate it (question asked 2 years ago 😅)

You asked that question 2 years ago, but you have been offering services since 2008? How did your nodes not catch fire in the meanwhile?

Your username is @Luca_C1VHosting on Telegram, but you've used Drillionaire and Drillionaire1, LucaDev and GiacomoDevIT in the past. You seem to switch username frequently, but thankfully you always use the same profile picture:

Which can be seen in most screenshots.

When I tell you we have the equivalent of a /20 IPv4, that's because that's the way it is. Believe it or not, I don't care what you think.

On which ASN? You used to have bigger classes, but they disappeared - perhaps you sold them?

Apparently you speak as a non-customer, moving some "prejudices" and totally fortuitous thoughts.

Of course! I would be completely crazy to be one of your customers

I will be happy to continue the conversation with you in private.

I will be happy to continue the conversation here, since i really value transparency

c1vhosting

@foxone said: You asked that question 2 years ago, but you have been offering services since 2008? How did your nodes not catch fire in the meanwhile?

We provide these services since Oct 2020. So, you're useless talking about previous time!

@foxone said: I will be happy to continue the conversation here, since i really value transparency

It doesn't seem like it, as you're practically masking every piece of information you write.
I'm not here to answer such trivial and stupid questions as yours. If you enjoy wasting time, go ahead. I will ignore you.
Those who are customers and have tried our services most likely think differently from you. So, you don't need to make false propaganda!

foxone

@c1vhosting said:

@foxone said: You asked that question 2 years ago, but you have been offering services since 2008? How did your nodes not catch fire in the meanwhile?

We provide these services since Oct 2020. So, you're useless talking about previous time!

@Francisco asked you if your company had age, and you told him you had "age" because you existed since 2008

But you didn't exist since 2008, your mother's company existed since 2008.
For the same logic, my company Foxo SRL would've been in business since 1994, year on which i wasn't even born

@foxone said: I will be happy to continue the conversation here, since i really value transparency

It doesn't seem like it, as you're practically masking every piece of information you write.

My friend, i could post all the direct links to the messages, but then you'd go ahead and delete them just like how you did with GitHub. Perhaps i could archive all of them in a channel and send the link here, but you promptly enabled the option to hide forwards on Telegram, which then can be easily used by you to say "it's all fake!!!"

EDIT: like pottery

I'm not here to answer such trivial and stupid questions as yours. If you enjoy wasting time, go ahead. I will ignore you.

🙈🙉🙊

debaser

This is great late night entertainment (and we can’t even see the hand gestures they’re obviously making). But @c1vhosting I think it’s time to be clear. I believe @foxone, I don’t see you prove anything to debunk it. Maybe just own your recent past and show us how you’ve improved.

c1vhosting

@debaser said: Maybe just own your recent past and show us how you’ve improved.

I think that is clear, no doubt and never doubt. But this "foxone" does the exact opposite! He speaks only of the past .. so it is unreliable and you can see that he just wants to have fun .. Maybe he does a really tiring job who knows!

chris

This was funny 😆 cv1 - please don't try to fool people online as it will cost you customers. You're in a group with people who know quite a lot of the industry you're wanting to work in - that's great but as it stands I wouldn't sign up now as you've just lied about your company, assets and facilities for little more than attention.

Just drop the pretence, I tend to have more respect for someone trying hard to achieve on a shoestring budget rather than someone who attempts to bs potential client's

c1vhosting

@chris said: I wouldn't sign up now as you've just lied about your company, assets and facilities for little more than attention.

Your choice, I understand it - but where and how did I lie about our company, assets and facilities for little more than attention?

Nekki

First decent bit of LES exclusive drama!

Maybe there’s hope for this place after all.

foxone

@c1vhosting said:

Your choice, I understand it - but where and how did I lie about our company, assets and facilities for little more than attention?

Ok, so

We own a datacenter facility in Pomezia (Italy) where we can provide you with high quality VPS, Dedicated Servers, Colocation, LIR Services, DDoS Protection, Web Hosting, Cloud Storage and multi-homed IP transit with ultra low latency and uplink redundancy.

C1V Hosting DC is a carrier neutral data center of maximum efficiency, designed and built to meet the redundancy requirements of the Rating 3 level (formerly Tier 3).
Carrier Neutral DC equivalent of Rating/Tier III, redundant paths for power and cooling to be able to maintain the datacenter without taking it offline. There are several international and national Carriers within the Datacenter and there are more than one Internet Exchange Point to connect easily.

The structure is video-monitored h24x7x365 by qualified security personnel.

Directly connected to the main interchange node in Rome through a modular transport infrastructure based on dark fiber, the datacenter is easily reachable from the outside and it is possible to request interconnections to carriers present at the interchange node. A further added value is the presence of content providers, national and international carriers, companies and various types of networks with which to exchange traffic privately or through Internet Exchange Points within the datacenter.

That is really impressive for a DC from somebody with no prior experience. But i found no technical details at all to back that up. What kind of cooling do you have? And what's the capacity of the backup generators?
At the address you set on Google Maps for the datacenter (and what i was able to confirm with a visit) you can only find apartment buildings and under-the-floor garages. You aren't running a DC on a garage under the sea level, right?? How about the floods??

Would you be open for a visit so I can redempt myself and we can all have a laugh over this terrible mishap?

ralf

Don't forget "multi-homed IP transit". I'm now imagining a residential ISP line and a 4G phone backup.

DP

LES GET IT ON

vyas

LES 🎭