Taste matters: why I should have known better than to use GoDaddy

Years ago I registered several domain names.  They were a lot cheaper then, and because I didn't want to think about which registrar to use, I went with the cheapest and most popular one: GoDaddy.

I did it despite their stupid, vaguely patriarchal name.  I did it even despite the blatantly sexist advertisements.  I told myself that they were just doing what they had to do to bring in customers, that it really didn't matter.  I silenced my doubts and gave them my money.

Since then, GoDaddy's behaviour has been increasingly tacky, insulting, and just plain bad for the Internet and its users.  I'm moving all of my domains onto another registrar, and although it is a pain in the neck, it's the right thing to do.  The lesson for me is that taste matters.  If a company seems distasteful to you initially, they're likely to offend you later — and they'll be doing it with your money.

Glass hosting

Google's recent release of App Engine and Amazon's success with EC2 and S3 are apparently bothering the kind folks at Joyent, who pushed out a press release extolling the root access they provide to their virtual machines, and decrying the lack of choice that the competing platforms provide.

Which is kinda funny, because Joyent requires that you run on Solaris. I have nothing against Solaris – I'm sure it's a fine operating system – but I also have nothing for it, and few people who are aching to work on it. EC2 gives you a choice of linux distros, and lets you control image deployment yourself in realtime (without waiting days). And yes, you do get root. So, what's the point again?

All of that having been said, Joyent provides a good, stable service, and I'm a customer. They could instead do a good job of pointing out what is special about their service. But Joyent's flackish attempt at PR differentiation is an embarrassment, a failed attempt to get some press in the firestorm surrounding the Google App Engine release.

Note: I left a much nicer comment along these lines on Joyent's blog, but I guess they didn't think it was too funny, because they deleted it. So why have a comments section at all? Cowards. If they want PR Newswire, they should use it – not a blog. (Besides, maybe they'd spell-check for them.)

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Turns out they probably didn't delete my post, but their blog has a cute feature: you post a comment and it appears immediately, but if you refresh the page it is gone. Then later (maybe after moderation?) it appears again. No "moderating your ill-considered flames" or "standby while the gerbils spin": comment is there, then it's gone. Then it's back, apparently.

Kudos to Kristie, the nice salesperson who responded.