OK, this isn't really political (at least not directly, aside from the SOPA connection), but it hits close to home for me. I just received the news that domain registrar/hosting service behemoth GoDaddy has bought out what has been (up until now) the high-quality, highly-respected hosting service Media Temple. Anyone involved in website development/hosting will recognize this as rather shocking and out-of-the-blue.
They're going through a lot of effort to address concerns (both technical, business-related and, I presume, political) about the buyout, going so far as to try and spin it as MT "saving" GD's reputation, rather than GD hurting MT's:
What about GoDaddy’s reputation in the tech community?
GoDaddy has been transformed in recent months and is essentially a new company. If we did not like what we have seen, we would not have joined the GoDaddy family. They have overhauled their leadership team and attracted tech talent from the best-of-the-best. We love “the new GoDaddy” that CEO Blake Irving and his team have created, especially their new approach with advertising, product focus and UX.
Though neither GoDaddy’s brand nor operations are being integrated into ours, we are excited to be a positive influence on them with how to make even more improvements to better serve the Web pro community.
As you can imagine, however, this is NOT going over well in the developer community...at all:
Graziano Scalia from Facebook9 minutes ago
NOOOOOOOOOOOO! SUPER Crap! I Loved MT!
GreenBoxLabs 24 minutes ago
Well, We have 1014 sites hosted on different types with Media Temple, time to look for a new host. Thanks for the heads up!
THarvey 28 minutes ago
Congratulations to MT founders on the major exit they were looking for. However, it is certainly a tragedy to see a solid, forward thinking company with strong customer service going to a company that is so deeply built on cheap marketing gimmicks, deception, and asshattery. While the companies will "remain separate", we know that GoDaddy will ultimately exert their influence over the company's policies and direction and will drive the company straight into the ground and turn the company into nothing other than another deceptive front.
Today mt got a lot of money but lost the respect and trust of numerous customers.
MikeLegacy 45 minutes ago
I have two VPS servers and was thinking of consolidating and this solidified my decision. Looks like DigitalOcean will be getting a little more of my money. Goodbye MediaTemple! I'm just upset I have to give them money now to transfer my domains to a new location.
JeffSensten 49 minutes ago
Goodbye MediaTemple. I'll always remember the happy times... We'll always have Culver City...
CrispCloudMedia 1 hour ago
You just can't find a company more universally despised on the interwebs then Godaddy.
RichardMorgan 1 hour ago
A LOT of us joined Media Temple because we either hated Godaddy's product or opposed them out of principle (ie, their support for SOPA among other things). Media Temple wasn't the cheapest, but the service was great, and we appreciated the company and what it stood for. Godaddy effectively just deprecated Media Temple. Yes, it may remain intact for a couple years, but we know it's just a matter of time till the good stuff gets removed. I've been planning to switch to SoftLayer anyway, but this speeds up the process.
djkentuckyham 1 hour ago
Gee, I just got my "Momentous news: GoDaddy buys (mt) Media Temple " email from Demian Sellfors. Well I have "Momentous news" for Mr. Selfors. I am picking up my jacks and moving my clients to a new hosting company. Not to get PC, but I can't support crappy service/products, over the top hard-sell/cross-sell tactics, big boobed race car driver spokesmodels and the destruction of elephants.
h34dup 1 hour ago
Wow, what a shame. I have major issues with doing business with GoDaddy on the basis of their abhorrent and unethical business practices (monopolistic acquisitions, outsourcing, trick pricing, pervasive false advertising) and labyrinthine customer service nightmare aimed solely at ripping off their customers. I am not a customer of theirs by choice.
It really pains me to see MediaTemple get sucked up into GoDaddy's soulless void, when for so long, mt represented to me a more honest business model and customer relationship based on integrity (despite any server outages or minor, temporary annoyances I've had). We have virtually no choice when it comes to domain name registrars thanks to GoDaddy, now it looks like we may run out of quality hosting options as well.
Looking for an alternative hosting service was not on the top of my list, but I can't support GoDaddy any more than the bare minimum I'm forced to already.
Anyway, for myself, I just happened to have spent the past few months moving all of my clients (except for one) off of Media Temple for unrelated reasons. Ironically, the only other site I have still hosted through MT happens to be...my own.
I have slightly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, GoDaddy's repulsive founder, Bob Parsons (who condones torture and shoots elephants for fun, among other things) is gone, and the new management has gotten rid of the infamous T&A "GoDaddy Girls" that Parsons loved to have jiggling all over the Superbowl. So, from a PR makeover perspective, I guess they're making a lot of headway. Presumably the MT buyout is part of that effort.
On the other hand, it's gonna take a lot more than a new ad campaign, a new CEO and throwing money around to snap up other companies to gain the trust of the web developer community, especially after the revelation a couple of years back that they not only supported SOPA but actually co-wrote the bill in the first place.
GoDaddy thinks that buying Media Temple will gain them some respect. The initial response seems to be that all this is doing is losing Media Temple theirs.