LowEndTalk is abuzz with news that community provider Crunchbits is discontinuing their 1.5GB and 4.5GB annual plans.

A response from Crunchbits support was quoted:

Unfortunately, the PROMO plans are being discontinued.
Please wait for our official announcement, which will have all the details, including refunds, upgrade paths, etc.

And another:

We are discontinuing the Yearlies VPS line. Soon enough, you’ll receive an e-mail with the details on why this has been done. Don’t worry, you will not get terminated until your due date, and sadly there is no way to reverse this.

Bummer!

I’ve got one of their 4.5GB plans and it’s been rock solid for me.  I’m certainly not going to complain about the $22.69 price:

Of course, there’s nothing morally or commercially wrong with this.  Crunchbits sold customers an annual plan, and is going to provide service until the year is up.  After that, they’re not renewing them.  Since they never promised this plan would be available until the sun grows cold, as long as they fulfill the terms of their agreement, no one has a reason to complain.

We can moan and commiserate though…

So why is this being done?  Crunchbits hasn’t commented, so we have to speculate about their motivations.

• Someone mentioned that on Discord, there had been a comment that there is a high support workload for these.  I’m guessing what’s meant is that it was very popular and the cost of supporting folks for under $2/month doesn’t make sense.
• My guess is that this simply isn’t profitable.  It was a great way to get publicity for the brand but maybe they’ve decided the ongoing cost now outweighs the ROI.
• It might be time to refresh the gear.  We’ve seen this in the past: provider buys some older kit, has promos, and then as it dies off, they decide to phase out the offers because they’d have to refresh onto more expensive gear.

What’s your take?  Let us know in the comments below!

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

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