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Folks, many of you know I’ve been a lonnnng time customer and avid fan of iPage.com.
I’ve been a loyal customer for around 20+ years. I’ve enjoyed unlimited hosting, unlimited domains names, (and trust me, I have many), unlimited email accounts, and more, all for around $140 a year. But I ain’t too happy right now.
This morning, when checking my credit card transitions,, I noticed two charges: one for $49.99; the other for $79.99. On a chat with iPage, I was told that the renewal price has increased, (no shit Sherlock!) but just the annual renewal fee, with NO REFUNDS possible. Renewals used to be around (or even less than) $20 a year.
I was considering selling off some domain names, (which can be transferred to most web hosting companies – i.e. GoDaddy or whichever) since I haven’t really used many of them, but now I’m a bit more motivated (and pissed).
I’d like to see some go to “good homes” as I’ve seen some horrible things happen to good domain names. My ex had his own Beatles fan website. He put his heart & soul into that thing for over 17 years. It was listed in the top 20 Beatles fan sites world wide, in “The Rough Guide to the Beatles”, for at least 3 years running and the site got at least a thousand hits/visits per day. When I got up one morning, he unexpectedly told me that he had decided to shut the site down during the night. I asked him if he had backed up his stuff. (He had written many of his own articles.) ‘Nope!” He replied. So I urged him: “For frig sake! At least keep your domain name! You were getting a ton of traffic! Don’t let it expire. It only costs a few bucks a year to keep the domain name, and you never know…. Someone could buy it and turn it into a porno site or something.” He laughed: “No one’s gonna buy that!” Last time I checked, it was an Asian porn site!
Okay, that example was a matter of stubbornness and stupidity – easily avoided if he wasn’t such a dumb-ass, but here’s a heart-breaking example…
Ever wonder why I have DisabilityPride.net and not DisabilityPride.com? There’s a reason for that. At the time, it was taken by a disabled woman, in the U.S. I believe. (.org was also taken.) Although this woman and I had never ever communicated, we were living very similar lives. She was a strong disability rights advocate, a writer; I think she was even a lawyer and may have been disabled since birth. Ii felt a kindred spirit to this woman who wasn’t even aware of me. Mary and I would occasionally check in on her site, just to see if she was still in play. One day Mary saw an announcement of this woman’s passing. I waited what we thought would be a respectable amount of time (a couple of months) and then we composed a very respectful email, asking if the estate had any plans for the site. I mentioned that if the estate were to ever not want to continue operating the site,, not only would I be honoured to purchase the domain, but I would also create a specific section on the site to dedicate to her memory and contributions to the disability movement. The estate’s lawyer said he would let me know once the estate decided. A short time later, I saw the domain for sale! I tried to jump on it. At that point I simply wanted to get it for the sake of honouring her and to try to prevent her site suffering a similar fate as my ex’s. Very sadly, a slime company who gobbles up domain names and resells them for a fortune, bought it and appealing to any sense of moral decency has done absolutely no good.
