LowEndTalk (LET)とか見ている人には分かると思うが、先日、とあるウェブホスティングの閉鎖が発表された。
2021年、私はそこのLifetimeプランを複数回購入していた。総額で150€以上支払ったが、恒久的に使えるなら安すぎる値段だった。
それから数年間、購入した中に100GBのReseller Hostingプランもあったが、特に再販もすることなく、(電気通信事業者云々とか面倒だし) PHPの公開環境として使用容量も帯域幅も100~200MB程度の状態でほぼ放置していた。
それから時は過ぎ、運営者の資金不足により2024年の9月に閉鎖が一度発表された。LETでは同情の声もあったが私は非難する側だった。(伏せる意味もないので言いますが、MyWというポルトガルの会社の話)
しかし、窮地を救った者がいた。LETの該当ディスカッション読めば分かりますが、私も使用している素晴らしいメールサーバープロバイダーのMXRouteのオーナーJarが請求書を支払い、新たなオーナーに。
以下が当時送られてきたサービス継続のメールの原文。これで私は救われた。しばらくの間は…
Hey friend,
My name is Jarland Donnell and I'm the owner of MXroute, LLC. You recently received an email explaining that MyW will be closing it's doors. While that email did in fact describe the facts of the matter at that time, we were able to prevent this at the last minute. MyW is in good standing with it's vendors and will remain operational. All of the services that you have paid for will continue to function. Miguel, the founder of MyW, is an old colleague of mine and we have the type of relationship that allows me to send you this notice before we have finalized all of the details of this transition. I believe it is more important that you know that your services are not going offline than it is for you to know the details that we're still working out. What I can tell you is that MXroute has the resources to keep MyW afloat indefinitely, regardless of it's profitability. Presently there is no risk of your services going offline.
As we work out the finer details of this you will of course be kept in the loop. I'm sorry that I don't have any more for you right now. Please expect that support may be limited during this time. A primary focus right now will be ensuring that everything is online and functioning as intended so as to reduce any need for you to contact support.
先日送られてきたメールというのは、LETに投稿された閉鎖発表と同文なので、そちらを参照。
その翌日に送られてきたメールが以下。“無期限に維持するリソースがある”に続きこのメッセージで、当時の私は”Lifetime”が保障されたと確信したことだろう。
Hey team,
This is Jarland Donnell from MXroute LLC again. In my last email I promised to keep you in the loop with MyW. MXroute has acquired the MyW brand and will be taking complete control of it. The transition is going to take us a bit so here's what we're doing right now:
- No more orders will be taken for new service
- No automated suspensions for past due invoices
- No automated termination for unpaid service
We are currently not prepared to accept payment for any of your services, and will therefore not be enforcing anything relating to billing at this time. Once we are prepared to accept continued payments for your services, we will make generous adjustments to your accounts to ensure that this was not an inconvenience to you. Our standard operating procedure with things like this is to provide an excess of free service rather than trouble you with problems that were not of your design nor were welcome with all of the things you already have to worry about on a daily basis.
As far as how we will manage the brand moving forward and what that will look like, there are some things that we just have to figure out during the transition. This acquisition was not made to further any of our goals at MXroute, nor was it made with any intent for profit. The entire purpose of this acquisition was to save you from an immediate loss of service. Whether the brand should be renamed and transitioned into different infrastructure, or whether it should be cleaned up and made into something that can stand on it's own two feet and split back off into it's own entity to thrive, we're open to different possibilities about how this advances. The primary concern will of course be your continued service availability.
As we continue with this effort please continue to expect slow, if not seemingly nonexistent support. We were no more ready for this acquisition than you were to move your website(s) with such short notice. It's going to take a bit more time before sitting in this chair feels comfortable and all of the resources are adequately distributed.
それから半年が過ぎ、私はその間PHPで非公開の自分用ウェブアプリもどきを作ったりして、以前よりは活用していた。ちなみに、その間サーバーは以前より不安定な状態であった。
そして今月、以下のメールが届き、MyWの本当の閉鎖が発表された。
Hey friends,
When we took over MyW it was to save it from a death that was coming with so little warning that data loss was guaranteed before you could migrate out. We weren't entirely certain how we would move forward with the hosting provider. All that we knew was that we weren't going to let everyone lose their data with virtually no warning, and we would figure out the rest as we went. Today we're letting you know that MyW will be permanently closing on July 1, 2025. At that date all customer data will be permanently deleted and will not be recoverable. The billing database containing your information will be deleted just the same, there will remain no record or backup of MyW (at least not any made by us). We are not entertaining any offers for acquisition of the brand, nor any ideas for keeping it running. It has been on life support and it is most fair to you that it be buried properly rather than passed around like a toxic asset.
We also know that many MySQL databases on WDE1 are corrupted after an abusive user on the server generated over 1TB of logs and filled the disk to 100%. It is unlikely that this will ever work better than it is working right now. There is no available time or funding to focus on repairing anything that is wrong with MyW, it will be severely neglected for the remainder of it's life. Please do not have reasonable expectations of it's support, as that will also be neglected. I understand that sounds bad. Fiction always sounds better. I don't deal in fiction.
Kind Regards, Jarland MyW Administrator
実は1つ目のメールが届く前にLETでは
Either everyone will be given a year to migrate or it’ll just keep running for the foreseeable future.
と1年後には閉鎖される可能性を視野に入れた発言はなされていたが、閉鎖するのは2025年7月で、1年は経っていない。
それはそうと、Lifetimeプランはどうあがいても持続不可能であり、誰かに売却しても同じ流れになると考えているのだろうが、これは逃げの姿勢にしか取れなかった。
Jarは実質的には慈善活動に近い形でホスティングを運営していたわけだが、とはいえMyWの新オーナーであり、維持し続ける責任があると感じた。
無期限に維持するリソースは消えたのか、不具合を修復するための資金は無かったという。
悪質なユーザーは数年後に死ねばいいと思うが、悪用などしていない私のような健全なユーザーには慈悲を与えるべきではないのか? (めちゃくちゃ上から目線)
私にとって公平な展開は、せめて2GBくらいでいいから永久的なホスティングを用意し続けるという流れだった。ほぼ全くリソースを使わず無駄にしていた私にとっては、それなら不満もなく許せたし納得できたが、ノンフィクションではそうもいかない。
ええ、損をしてイライラしてるだけです…
でも高い勉強代というほどでも無いかも
やっぱり、赤字でここまで維持してくれたJarには感謝すべきかもしれない。全アカウントのうちLifetimeプランの数が多すぎる。これはMikePTが悪いは… (ソース)
Reseller plans:
- Of 632 active resellers, 592 are one-time billing
- Of 41 cancelled resellers, 17 were one-time billing
- Of 22 terminated resellers, 9 were one-time billing
Regular shared:
- Of 626 active shared accounts, 609 are one-time billing
- Of 44 cancelled shared accounts, 28 were one-time billing
- Of 16 terminated shared accounts, 14 were one-time billing
結論: Lifetimeプランを買うのはやめておこう! いずれこうなるぞ