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What the?

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Out of all you said this is the part that gets to everyone, if it's a hobby you do it with friends not global.

Too many people just start up and then go away, with peoples money.

That's the no-no that get's everyone upset.

Those aren't people starting as a hobby and growing into a business. They're people trying to get rich quick in the hosting world and finding it not so possible. They quickly dry up their limited funding and disappear. If they cared at all about their clients they wouldn't just grab and run, they'd explain why they were letting go and make a graceful exit.

People who start out as a hobby start out very much the same way though, but the difference is they care about what they are doing and make a point of doing what it takes to deliver on their promises. It results in a business built on their passion for making things right, at first funded by other things but eventually going on to turn a profit of it's own. A lot of the hosts that have been around for a long time started out this way.

Also, does it really matter if a small startup is registered or not. Filing taxes is an individual responsibility, which falls on every legal citizen as well as every business executive to see that it gets done.

The federal income tax forms have provision to declare income that wasn't already counted by a payroll processing agency or other tax claim, that's the provision you use to declare taxes on any qualifying income you make regardless of source. It's the same way a waiter declares taxes on their tips. Which by law they are supposed to do.

Deeplist, my point there is the very structure of a business is that it is designed to collapse to protect it's staff from legal or financial crisis. Businesses come and go as per the natural cycle of things, and it doesn't really matter if they are registered or not other than for legal reasons. Some will succeed, some will collapse, and others will struggle on in limbo, handicapped by poor management. The only places where a registered business is an advantage over an unregistered one is in legal and financial aspects where a registered business has additional leverage. In terms of the ultimate quality of a service as seen by a client, it makes little to no difference at all. The quality of a service comes from the way it's management operates it, not from it's legal status or financial standing.
 
May as well close the forum down then. There aren't a lot of free hosts that are likely to register their little "business". Many an established host started off as one of these wannabes that you're all against.

Give them a chance and quit shooting them down in flames for trying. As with the last 10 years the majority of them will fail and will repeat and rinse for the next 10 years to come. If you don't like what they post, pass by the thread and leave them alone.

So everyone should just operate illegally, take clients' money with unsustainable "unlimited" plans, then close down, and do the same thing again a few months later? I'm not sure what you have against legal business, but that's how things are supposed to be run in the United States (maybe things are different in Australia...who knows), and it really is a shame to see you supporting that.

You open a business, you file the appropriate paperwork, you pay the taxes, you are held accountable. I don't get why kids running illegal businesses should somehow be glorified. I'm lost.
 
And Seraphim, just to clarify, you are incorrect. It doesn't matter if you make a profit or not. Many businesses don't the first couple years. That doesn't mean it's a hobby. "Generally, an activity qualifies as a business if it is carried on with the reasonable expectation of earning a profit." That's from the IRS. If you have the intention of earning a profit at some point, you are operating a business and not a hobby.
 
Hobby income is still required to be accounted for as personal income unless it's under some rediculously small amount, as mentioned above. Something like $100. If unregistered, they're also forbidden from doing business under any name OTHER than their actual REAL name. (The only exception would be if they've filed the correct paperwork and have had a ficticious business name approved.) So all of these 12 year olds running around doing business are "Super Awesome 100% Uptime Host" had better have some documentation to prove that they're authorized to do business under such a name, or else they're breaking the law. Even so, all payments have to be accepted and deposited as "John Smith DBA Super Awesome 100% Uptime Host".

Bottom line is, if you can't go through the proper channels to do this legally, then you have no business accepting money from folks and being in charge of senstive customer info. You also shouldn't be able to post here and further engage in illegal business transactions. In all honesty, I'm absolutely appalled by Jan's earlier comment that children and people around here should just be able to post whatever they want and if there's a problem, "just overlook the thread and ignore it."
 
Imagine if I went and opened a McDonald's on the local street corner to "get my feet wet" and "see if I can handle it" before going official, without having the appropriate licenses, permits, etc. Do you think the state and city would go for that?

People seem to think that rules relating to business do not apply on the Internet. And unfortunately, there is no regulation. The states and countries don't hunt these kids down for operating illegal businesses. Being strapped for cash absolutely does not excuse you from not going about the offical and appropriate means of creating a business. If you're strapped for cash, you probably shouldn't be opening a "business" in the first place.

Completely agree that registered businesses should be the only ones allowed to advertise. It would not be a difficult thing for the mods here to verify, and would cut down on the illegal businesses. Secondly, there should be an age verification. Nobody under 18 should be allowed to advertise, since technically speaking (at least here in the US), minors can't engage in contracts. They really shouldn't be conducting business in the first place.



Probably because they come here making ridiculous offers and get blasted by the legitimate folk.


Mate, if a little kid can afford to buy a franchise such as McDonald's, I support him.
 
So you're actually promoting illegal business transactions to take place here and just turn a blind eye? Oh, and nobody said anything about it being specifically targeted to "free" hosts, but all hosts, free OR paid. Especially paid since there's a transaction of money involved. There needs to be SOMETHING in place that prevents any duface online from coming here and advertising nonsense "companies" that do not really exist.

Remember all than crap that went down a month or so ago about that Ivan guy from Servelayer that I outted for running an illegal business and using a nulled WHMCS license? He was flaunting his paid hosting plans all over the place and look now ---> http://servelayer.com

I mean come on.



Running a webhost may be considered a "hobby" to you, but if you're making money from it, how is it still a hobby? A hobby is something you do in your spare time because you enjoy doing it, not something you make money from. Once you start making money, it's a source of income, regardless of whether you consider it to be a hobby or not, the source of the income still needs to be reported to the IRS and the name that you're doing business under needs to be registered with your state's SOS.

That whole bit about not having the money up front to cover licensing costs is a load of crap too because it typically costs between $30 and $50 to file with a state's SOS devision and if you can't come up with thirty bucks to go about this the right way, then you have no business running a "company" at all.

You do realize most states, including mine, South Carolina, does not require you to register a business. And making money, you can just called yourself a DBA, which does not legally require you to post on your income tax forms.
 
Somehow you managed to miss the point Schmarvin. Thanks Deeplist for enlightening him as to what my point was. ;)

Also, it is normally not the state that requires business licenses, DBAs. It is normally the county or city, outside of LLCs and Corporations.

Hmmmmm...nope, apparently you don't need to in SC. I wonder how many of these hosting companies are actually in SC?
 
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But would you support a McDonalds that did not have all of the proper permits and licenses?

Let's rephrase the analogies. You keep mentioning McDonald's which veers into red herring land because it is a franchise of one of the 5 biggest food corps in the world.

These small hobbies (and yes they are hobbies, which is why the Free Host vs Paid Host thing is so crucial!) are how people learn the chops so that they go on to bigger and better things. We all know that these little hosts aren't making any real cash. It's far closer to a modern form of apprenticeship education. "Would you support Mrs. Jones in her bake sales?"

"Oh my gawsh, she is selling BROWNIES! She held FIVE sales and made $37 each! Get her!"

The little revenue the free guys get from the ad revenue clicks etc wanders somewhere between a hobby on line 20-something on the front page of "Misc Income" vs the Schedule C where you can wipe it out with your expenses.

The truth is, it's a Young Person's Global World. All the crusades for Over 18 are beside the point because all of y'all were better at tech at 14 than I still am. So let the kid have his digital lemonade stand. It's Offer Acceptance Consideration contracting gang. That's why I worked pretty hard on my digital policy. I'll try "almost" any free host - why? Because my data is redundant, and I am not getting into giving out my credit card. (Later when the anonymous payments come along more, I'll do a few of those.)

So let's tone down all the "Register or we'll hunt you like vermin" stuff. Remember my thread that everyone loves to hate? It's the knife that cuts through butter ads. If the host has been up, they might continue to be up, so that's how you pick a service. There's 500 hosts on here, of which I got 30. 25 of those didn't make it, which is what I set out to do. I'll buy lunch for the first one who picks one of my winners specifically from my study and gets hosed.

If some of y'all have the itchin' to fight corruption, take it up a level, to the bigger acts who are causing real damage. And ya' know? Nothing is permanent in this world anyway. So *plan* for the turnover. That's why I built a Mirror Spread. I lost Babblehost, who was starting to get noticed... but I still have four winners left. Plus a "lifetime" spot from a Paid host presuming nothing jumps up at that offer.
 
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When you're accepting money in exchange for a service, it takes this thing to a whole new level. Minors can't enter into agreements, legally anywhere in the US (that I know of) without parental concent. When you're exchanging money with a "mystery" corporation that really doesn't exist, who is held accountable when something goes wrong? Nobody. And that's part of the problem.

I think misrepresentation also has a lot to do with some of the resentment. When you have a 14 year old kid posting online that he's the "Owner/CEO" of "Big Time Fancy Host Inc" and in reality, he's nothing more than a pimple faced goof ball pounding away at a computer in his parent's basement, there's a certain level of trust that is diminished industry wide. We all take a jab in the side when one of these "CEOs" forget to send their allowance in to the DC, and their server gets cut off.

The overall point that I'm trying to make is: Regardless of whether a "company" is registered or not, there has got to be a level of standards that are set in this business. If you don't meet the criteria, then GTFO because you're making us all look bad by running a shoddy half assed operation that will disappear into the night two months down the road.
 
I will however agree with making an 18+ requirement for advertising web hosts. That makes sense because even though you do exclude some of the kid startups you also make sure that the liability of the operation is covered and that all contracts are binding. Although people often lie about their age to get what they want, so it won't be completely effective, most places that have an age requirement simply make it a bannable offense to lie about it.
I really HATE discrimination against age, especially in this business. I'm sure there are many 14-year old geeks who have the maturity and expertise to run a business that far exceeds those of geeks three times their age. They could be smart, keen, willing and open to learning. So if you molly cuddle them instead, how can they learn?

People - regardless of their age - should be taught the ability to take constructive criticism. There could be a nice sticky somewhere or it could be written in the heading that those who make an offer should expect scrutiny by experts, that said scrutiny is not personal, and that it could be helpful to them as a measure to protect their business.
 
I'm sure there are many 14-year old geeks who have the maturity and expertise to run a business that far exceeds those of geeks three times their age. They could be smart, keen, willing and open to learning.

I am sure that's true, however, it's not the point. There are certain legalities involved for "CEOs" who are under the age of 18.
 
A lovely quote from Tao sort of sums it up
I'll try "almost" any free host - why? Because my data is redundant
This is unfortunately not the case in 99.99% of us that is also usually the same number the 'alleged' host promises as uptime.

This is an old and will run till hell freezes over discussion, so to try to break it down a bit;

Kids can't legally run businesses, the law normally falls back on the parent(s)/guardian if things go wrong and the lawyers get involved, and as you can't just say 'oh we didn't know they were doing that' (that makes you a bad parent/guardian - as lets face it what were they doing on their computer behind closed doors all those hours...)

Webhosting free or paid costs money, no matter what type you think your offering that will pay for itself, the $100 you got for your birthday and used for 6 months of a reseller will run out. What if you don't get another $100 for Christmas, you and your clients are stuffed.

Hobby - something you do for fun and carry the costs for doing it
Business - something you pay heavily for and hope to hell your doing it well enough to cover your costs.

Adults - all the above applies to you too, make sure you have a source of income or investment that allows continuity of service.

I don't give a rats if you fill out the right paperwork, but don't misrepresent, and do know your legal obligations, that way if you blow it your in deep trouble, your debts will follow you and you could end up being Big Al's new puppy dog!

If people are going to trust you with their site and files, you need to appreciate that, that's all they ask. Meaning you work your socks off and put as much of your cash into it as is needed to keep them going. Even down to a very much overlooked item, research YOUR provider to ensure they are reliable.

All comments to the Old Peoples Heavenly IP Rest Home, where hosting clients can rest easy as there is no net access (we don't let them know their site is down and medicate them when they think it might be).
 
If people are going to trust you with their site and files, you need to appreciate that, that's all they ask. Meaning you work your socks off and put as much of your cash into it as is needed to keep them going. Even down to a very much overlooked item, research YOUR provider to ensure they are reliable.

Or even better, keep your tinfoil hat on and have a backup with a different provider in case your main provider fails you. Even in this business, offsite backups are a real lifesaver.
 
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