A funny thing has been happening over the past couple of years. As DreamHost has grown into one of the top 10 web hosts in the US the reaction from the community has been interesting, to put it lightly. Our unique and fun way of operating has always brought us fans and there have also always been people out there that just didn’t seem to ‘get’ us. Lately, though, we seem to be downright controversial. It seems like anyone who has heard of us has some sort of opinion, positive or negative, and many people are quite vehement about it.
Discussions about us often become heated and people on both sides, yay and nay, have strong opinions. It sometimes even devolves into personal insults. We’re controversial enough that we regularly make it to the top of Digg.com and people now seem to be blogging about us specifically to try to gain some attention from their association with us. I guess it can’t be said that we’re boring!
5 replies on “On Controversy and Publicity”
Admit it… 98% of the success is because of Josh’s newsletters!
I think you just notice it more because of your size. When you have enough customers, the unhappy minority is still a lot of people… no matter how small the percentage is.
It’s like Wal-mart. Supposedly, everyone on the planet hates them, yet their parking lot is full around the clock.
Congrats on the top 10. You’re only 11,776,266 domains behind Wildwest, so you should be in the #1 spot within a week or two. 😉
Yeah, I think you may be right… The Wal-Mart analogy is great! I hate them myself! 😎
We’re going to be stuck at #10 for awhile. The road ahead is a whole lot longer than the road behind!
hey – sorry to post here – but i don’t know what else to do – i need help @ dreamhost – i’ve had a domain there for about a year businessPlan.com – i sold the domain and i have numerous others that i now want to host at dreamhost – i’ve been very happy with the service –
1) can’t get anyone to help me ftp to the site – the domain isn’t registered to you anymore the buyer changed it – but you still have all my code on your servers & programs of mine look for images there – which they can’t get to –
2) don’t know enough to ahndle all the domain stuff myself – and i can’t get any one to speak to – kinda on the phone – please help
satisfied happy by frustrated customer!!
svb
Stephen.. I’m sorry you’re having trouble but I looked at your support history and our techs have answered you with the info you need a couple of times now. Just ftp to businessPlan.dreamhosters.com, or redhost.dreamhost.com instead of businessplan.com. That’s the only difference.
It seems also to be very much like Apple. Though I personally can’t stand Apple, I am starting to feel like an Apple fanboy with Dreamhost. It’s a totally unique product, it claims to “just work” but doesn’t always ( 🙂 ) , it’s run by semi-evangelical people (in that you often put forth philosophy on the Tao of hosting… there’s you a good title to use somehere… Tao Of Hosting) and there are many haters, but those who love, love deeply.
Anyway, even if you do have troubles from time to time I find it good for my soul to support good people running good businesses that go against the grain of the cold corporate mentality. Please do not go the way of The Google… stay employee owned and stay as you are… you are one of the few holdouts of good hearted business that we have left (of any national profile).