More than ten years ago, I set up a site at DirectNIC that has been serving me well ever since. It was nice to know back in the go-go years of the Internet boom and subsequent bust, and boom and bust and so on, that there was a set-it-and-forget-it option out there, and DirectNIC's bannerless hosting option was it. Fifteen bucks a year to register and host a basic Web site (with POP email or email forwarding) was pretty good; and an extra fifteen to take the banner ad off the top was even better.
That era is about to end.
I just got notice that bannerless hosting is being phased out in October. We old faithfuls must now decide what hosting option we want...if we want to stick with DirectNIC at all. The email notification was mighty cagey about actual costs, because as it turns out the cheapest option to replace the $15 bannerless hosting is a budget plan for customers that only have 1 bannerless hosted domain, offering about the same features (100 MB of disk space, 10GB of bandwidth transfer and 1 pop3 account) for $22.95.
Meh. I'll probably migrate to that plan before the October deadline, and take advantage of the current agreement ("you will not be charged until the current bannerless hosting renewal date") and see where to take my bannerless domain. I'm sure there's something better out there nowadays.
Any suggestions?
