Two events this week that just made hosting business in Australia a bit tougher.
Australian dollar has just hit 93 cent USD today, and it is still on its way to parity (which I doubt will happen but I can be very wrong). Everything has already been more expensive in Australia than in US, and strong Aussie dollar + weak US dollar has just made the gap even wider.
Here is a question for those running web hosting companies today: “Are life-time hosting plans feasible?” Do they present a valid business model? Is it possible to run life-time plans, i.e. your users pay once and once-only for a hosting plan that runs as long as either the user or the hosting company shall live.
It actually sprung out from this discussion thread at Whirlpool forums, where many Australian Internet users hang out. OP asked “any reason why I shouldn’t go with life-time hosting?” and used one small US-based hosting company as an example, where for USD$120 out-right you can get a life-time hosting plan with 6,000MB of disk space and unlimited bandwidth.