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The idea of "unlimited hosting plans" seems suspect from the get-go. As well it should, since hosting involves a physical service that will therefore have physical limits inherently. There is only so much harddrive space on a given server; data pipes can only physically support so much traffic. Doesn't take much prowess in the math skills department to understand that a $10/month hosting plan can't realistically offer more resources than a dedicated server costing hundreds of dollars, which has hard limits built in. So what's the deal? Dishonesty ain't good karma, after all!

Here's the lowdown: in managing resources in a shared hosting environment, storage space and bandwith are pretty much never an issue. Probably 99% + of hosting clients do not use all the allocated space and bandwith, so the few that do are essentially subsidized by others. As technology improves and a host grows, costs for these resources typically go down.

The premium resources for any host are the server's processor and memory limits: how hard is the computer working to run the website and email? This is what every respectable host watches on shared hosting plans, since this is what can slow down or crash the server for everybody. The use of CPU/memory demands cannot be correlated directly to the use of storage space and bandwith, since the type of site, how well it's coded, and type of traffic has a huge impact on how many resources the site demands.

It would be virtually impossible to tax the limits of most hosting plan quotas without first hitting the wall on server power! This is what hosts often don't mention, and it's why some sites just cannot be hosted on a shared server: they need more power than shared hosting can provide.

The proliferation of unlimited hosting plans is partially because of the built-in subsidy and partially because of the highly competitive nature of the industry: there are countless hosting options, and "unlimited hosting" simply sells better. Even among folks who would never in a Kajillion years approach their hosts' limits, there is a preference for unlimited plans. Maybe it just feels like a better value. Maybe people don't want to worry over not getting a big enough plan to meet their needs down the road. Whatever the reasons, unlimited hosting is what many people want. And if you're not selling what people want to buy, you will be a sad hosting company, no?

Therefore, GKH experimented with unlimited plans, because we want to stay competitive. But even in explaining the truth behind unlimited hosting, it just didn't feel right. You can't really buy unlimited hosting. Only no "You've reached 85% of your storage space" email notices.

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