Daniel Briere's blog

Will free hosting completely displace paid hosting?

So here's a question for you: is it possible that free hosting will ever completely displace paid hosting as the solution most personal and small-business users turn to? Is it possible that 10 years from now, a large majority of hosting accounts will either be on free shared hosting servers or dedicated servers?

Yes and no.

Unless you've been living in a hole in the ground, chances are you've heard about (and probably participated in heated debates discussing) Web hosting overselling over the past couple of years. However, one aspect of overselling is rarely discussed: the long-term effects on the Web hosting industry.

This is often not realized, but any trend has a long-term effect on something. In this case, how does overselling affect the Web hosting industry a year from now? 2 years? 5 years? This is what I hope to shed some light on.