So, I spent some time dusting off the plugins since, apparently, people are honestly reading the blog. I also installed Google Analytics because I’m curious who the heck is reading the blog and how you people are getting here because two weeks ago, this wasn’t even a blog. I even stuck one of those plugins that will tweet when I rant. Which could be dangerous because I really do like to run my mouth – though with RSS now, no one can ever take anything back.

I never mentioned the company that made the acquisition overtures by name on purpose, though some folks put two and two together and figured out it was HostGator. Though I imagine after I blasted them on 6th Street and in a blog post they may be rethinking their interest , since they were identified, and apparently people are reading, I feel like I have to say a few things.

There are few people in this industry I despise, but HG isn’t one of them, and my despising certain people is generally based on what I perceive as unethical behavior. Most people in this industry are fine people with good intentions that they balance against bottom lines. That’s never an easy thing, and anyone who hasn’t had to drive a company they felt strongly about may not comprehend the nights that you stay up grappling with your ethics vs. your revenue, your beliefs vs. your profit margin.

My ire, discomfort, defensiveness was directed more to the loss of smaller businesses into behemoths, and HG is a behemoth – the idea of being swallowed was uncomfortable. The prevalence of “scrub hosts” in this industry is a frightening development (scrub hosts: Hosting companies run by people who, if they didn’t have the button in cPanel, would not have a clue something could be done or how to do it and care about nothing other than the money to be made here), and it seemed like, at the rate the flush with cash behemoths are looking to buy smaller players for account numbers, there will be nothing left scrub hosts and behemoths. It feels like a certain level of service is dying out, slowly. Maybe I’m being too cynical, I don’t know.

It could have probably been anyone that wanted to swallow my accounts whole that would have provoked that reaction. I believe… no, I know that I give a certain level of service that someone much, much larger than me simply can’t. I know I have more stability technologically simply because my smaller fleet allows me to baby every machine daily vs. waiting for an alarm to go off telling me there’s a problem. I know that because I’m not scattershot about my clients, I understand them at a level that the behemoths don’t understand their clients, and I vigilantly guard against abusers in a way that an automated fraud check simply can’t catch because I consider far more than whether the card will clear and is likely to be charged back.

I can only do these things because I’m smaller. I know this – and so the concept of growth has both fascinated me and frightened me at the same time ever since I started years and years ago. I’ve never truly tried to grow before, not really and part of it was definitely that I was afraid of losing that thing, that intangible “it” that made my company (to me) special.

The concept of being bought by someone with highly different priorities than me was offensive in a lot of ways. It doesn’t make their approach wrong and mine right. But when they offer to buy, and I’m the one getting swallowed, it does make theirs prevalent and overshadowing, and mine seem puny by comparison.

No one likes to feel puny. Especially CEOs. We just get all sortsa uppity about that kinda crap.

But if I was going to sell to a company, HostGator would not be the last on my list. I have an immense about of respect for what the company has accomplished, and I have had a few dealings in the past with Brent that left me incredibly impressed by him. I sincerely admire that he has kept his interaction with his clients when they have a problem despite HG turning into a behemoth, and though I’m still patently annoyed that they caved to the “unlimited” bullshit rampant in the industry, I had a great deal of respect for the fact that his blog post basically came out and said that he knew it was bullshit but due to market forces he felt his back was against the wall. It’s more than other companies that started this downward slide into insanity did.

Oh, come on, people. We all know its bullshit. Get over it.

So, if I left anyone with the impression that I couldn’t stand the company, I apologize to HG. Blogging when you are highly emotional and your head is spinning is probably bad, especially when the people reading are likely to put two and two together.

Blogging after the cPanel party at Pure is just unilaterally a really bad idea, always, and I now have a new rule: no blogging after cPanel parties for at least 48 hours. No exceptions.

And I’m actually, now, glad it happened. Though my running my mouth probably took the offer off the table [smirk], it gave me an immense amount to think about. It brought a lot of convergent ideas in my head into startling clarity and really made me examine an awful lot of things and for that, I am truly grateful to them for making the overture. It was flattering.

Those are things I’m still processing, so I’ll wind this up and sign off. I have orders to install.