7 Reasons Why Free Web Hosting has Hurt the Internet

Over the past decade, the internet has transitioned from being a place where only geeks hung out to a vast cloud full of information produce by anyone and everyone. We’ve gone from a select few making a website dedicated to their cat, to everyone and their cat having a website.

It started with Geocities, Tripod, and Homestead. These websites made it easy for amateurs to the internet to create a very basic website. In the light of modern times, these sites barely exist. But free web hosting continues in the form of free web hosting, free forums, etc. And it has hurt the internet.

1) Free web hosting caters to spam

Since most free web hosting providers are ad revenue based, they typically have very low standards for what types of websites are allowed to placed on their servers. And while some may have rules, they’re rarely monitored or enforced. This has opened the door spammers to create link farms in large numbers, sites that scrape copyrighted content, and just otherwise extremely low quality content.

2) Free web hosting is too easy to use

I’m all for websites providing increasingly easy ways of performing complex tasks — creating a forum on your website in 1999 wasn’t an easy task. But today, it’s a matter of simply signing up for a free forum service. And while I inherently have no issue with this, it allows users who have no clue what they’re doing to undertake very large tasks.

3) Free web hosting promotes technological ignorance

I’m a firm believer that everyone should have access to the internet. I’m a firm believer that everyone should be able to create their own content and place it on the internet. However, that being said, let’s face it: you have to be willing to learn how to do this properly. If you’re willing to pay for web hosting–which is an extremely small fee these days–you’re typically more willing to learn how to effectively manage, maintain, and promote your website. If you’re going to be running a forum, you’re more willing to customize it and encourage a thriving community. if you’re creating a blog, you’re interested in producing quality content. However, if the decision to make a website was made in the 30 seconds it took you to create that free website, chances are it’s not going to succeed.

4) Free web hosting limits the website owner

Okay, so let’s assume that you are a website owner who wishes to really learn about maintaining a website. There’s one problem, though: Free web hosts rarely provide the “customer” with the tools they need to learn. And when you try to ask the hosting provider to do something for you (which you otherwise could have done yourself), you’re met with horrible customer service and support.

5) Free web hosting discourages innovation

When signing up for a free website, blog, or forum, typically you’re presented with a small number of pre-fabricated templates that you can use–with no way to customize them. This, over time, produces a plethora of websites that look and function identically. The website owner is left with very little choice, and browsers of the internet are forced into seeing the same thing over and over again, with little way of distinguishing between content providers.

6) Free web hosting discourages quality content

Free website owners likely don’t truly care about the long-term destination of their website. If it fails, they really haven’t lost anything monetary, besides time. If it doesn’t get maintained, there’s no loss at all. There’s little incentive to produce quality content that people will want to subscribe to and read on a regular basis. You have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. Unfortunately for the rest of the internet, they have to sift through loads of pointless content before finding what they were looking for or interested in.

7) Free web hosting is quite simply … cheap

And I mean that in more ways than simply monetary scale. If someone is going to become a website owner and maintainer; if they’re going to become a content producer; if they have something valuable to say and share with the rest of us, they should be willing to at least attempt to do a “good job” with it. If you’re not willing to give out something to secure your place on the internet, why would the rest of us want to hear what you have to say?

The free web hosting services cater to the “I want it now” ideology, with little regard for the planning and work required to produce quality content. The internet has been cut because of it. And unfortunately, I don’t think the blade is going away anytime soon.

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