At the time of this entry, the host for this blog – and and all of littleghost.com – is XO Communications. Formerly Concentric Communications, a merger/bankruptcy threat/whatever turned Concentric into XO.

This was my first web host; littleghost.com (my first domain) has been parked on their servers for eight or so years. Long time, especially in Internet years.

As an early-adopter Web host, XO has not done the best job on keeping up on with the Jones: Lack of DB support, lack of SSH and PHP support (PHP has been supported for a couple of years, but only as a CGI, IN the CGI directory. Ug.). And this lack of functionality at a relatively high price. The only reason I didn’t leave them is that I didn’t have the time for all that domain transfers may entail. My bad.

Recently, however, they’ve tried to be competitive with other sites. OK.

The bad part is, they never notified existing members.

For example, I used to pay ~$25/mo for hosting, which was 100M storage, no subdomains or database access (can add for $x/mo).

The new plan – named EXACTLY the same – gives an XO hoster 250M, subdomains, free database (mySQL) hosting and so on. For $16/mo.

When I literally stumbled across this and called, the response was, “Well, if existing customers do notice this they can then transfer to this plan.” If I don’t notice? “You’ll be billed at the current rate [$25] and have that [old] plan’s features.” Even the upgraded plans – as embedded in the [logged in as XO user] admin – reflected the OLD plan upgrades/costs. So, if I really needed more this or that, I could upgrade from X-1 to X-2, and never be notitified that the “new” X-1 plan is more than the “old” X-2 plan and costs less. I don’t even know if this is legal (don’t much care); I do believe it’s incredibly unethical (I do much care).

And they admit they never sent out an e-mail about this, and to offer this to all existing customers would “be too expensive.” Huh?

So I, a never-late-paying for eight years client gets the shaft; new members get more functionality and a lower price.

Say NO to XO. Last year, I help host four sites directly; I recommended hosting to over triple that number (most who took my advice). I never recommended XO, as they were too expensive and offered few of the extras other sites did.

Even with the lower prices and better features, I will never recommend them. Because they shafted me and other existing members, and did not apologize for this (no offer for free month of hosting or whatever – which I was not looking for, but … still).

This seems odd to me in many different ways, and it’s not a dollar issue, per se (though I did pay more for less functionality over appox. four months). Their current offer does NOT say “For new members only” – I could understand (to a degree) that pitch.

But when not one but two CSRs tell me that they’ll give the new, low rate to existing customers “who notice it” is just not cricket.

X0 – Welcome to the Corporate Hall Shame!