A thought on business openess
I have been looking for web hosting company constantly even though I am happy with my current web hosting company: the SiteGround.
Things have changed a lot since 10 years ago. At the time, SiteGround run a forum and people/user can questioning/complaining ... etc. at the forum. I remember reading through those posts before I signed up SiteGround. I think what really drive me to singed up with SiteGround is the openness of the forum. Through the interactions in the forum, you can see SiteGround are genuinely running the business - not all customer can be satisfied, but all viewers will have a measure in their mind, reasonable response will be recognized.
Just today, I happen to browse through SiteGround website, I notice that the forum is gone and there is a 'Client Review' section, which missed the interaction nature of the forum and, to a point, can't really stand out from reviews all over the internet that promote web hosting site. To me, that is kind of sad for customers - lost in all the reviews and can't really tell the truth from the false.
To me, SiteGround have a lot to offer. Reading through the tutorial and Webinars, you see all the features SiteGround offered. However, on the other hand, hosting site can reproduce those tutorials while with lousy support of them.
The point is that people can advertise and promote products all they want, but what is the authentication pieces of that? I saw people went to sites and complained about certain hosting web sites and would be countered with some posting that complement that same hosting company. A lot of these are useless information without the hosting company responding to the complainer's issue.