Its a question of priorities: I pay $150 a month for hosting. Next to my sales, that's mouse droppings. Getting an extra 512 MB of RAM or 1 GB of RAM at the same price is pretty meaningless to me: the app runs. Running on more RAM will not help me sell more software.
Hypothetically saving $50 a month on hosting is also less than motivating to me -- "Try a new host out for a day" means I lose a day that could be sent implementing things that will increase the amount of software I sell in a scalable fashion. For example, A/B testing (or SEO, or writing better email copy, or...). Note that future improvements to cost reduction are not multiplicatively effective but future A/B tests (etc) are. (Saving $50 on hosting costs is a one-off improvement -- it doesn't make my next improvement more effective. Increasing conversions by 1.3% anywhere in my funnel right now would make me about $50 a month. A 1.3% lift does make my next improvement more effective because funnel conversions are essentially multiplicative: 10% improvement at gate A and 10% improvement at gate B means 21% improvement total, not 20%. Most of you probably already know this but if it is news to you bookmark this factoid and come back to it later because it is really freaking important.)
Getting an extra 512 MB of RAM or 1 GB of RAM at the same price is pretty meaningless to me
I wouldn't mind an extra gig of RAM and a pony
The second statement highlighted is why I said you should try linode for a day. To clarify what I meant is you should try linode out (not as a production server) but to see if you can use it the same for that extra gig of ram for the same cost or less with minimal effort.
I really wasn't trying to say it would save you money in the end or that it would help sell software as you seem to think.
Edit: and btw your Buy Now button is still really hard to see as I commented before
I really wasn't trying to say it would save you money in the end or that it would help sell software as you seem to think.
I think you might be missing the point here. If it does not in fact save significant money or help sell software--he's not interested.
I have a (currently underused) slicehost account. In my opinion these guys have historically been known for awesome customer service. They need to continue to do that, and not try to compete on price. I am not optimistic about their ability to deliver amazing service after the Rackspace acquisition, though.
Hypothetically saving $50 a month on hosting is also less than motivating to me -- "Try a new host out for a day" means I lose a day that could be sent implementing things that will increase the amount of software I sell in a scalable fashion. For example, A/B testing (or SEO, or writing better email copy, or...). Note that future improvements to cost reduction are not multiplicatively effective but future A/B tests (etc) are. (Saving $50 on hosting costs is a one-off improvement -- it doesn't make my next improvement more effective. Increasing conversions by 1.3% anywhere in my funnel right now would make me about $50 a month. A 1.3% lift does make my next improvement more effective because funnel conversions are essentially multiplicative: 10% improvement at gate A and 10% improvement at gate B means 21% improvement total, not 20%. Most of you probably already know this but if it is news to you bookmark this factoid and come back to it later because it is really freaking important.)