As the web grew up, the web hosting industry began to shift.
A growing number of web hosting providers were offering “hosting” services that allowed you to use your own server and pay a fixed monthly fee.
As the popularity of hosting grew, many of these providers began offering a free trial to customers.
Nowadays, these companies often offer a free tier or a $99 monthly service.
For a typical residential internet user, these are good deals.
But a new wave of web providers are offering web hosting services that include a free service for their customers.
A new wave?
In a recent article in New Scientist, Michael Moore explains why the “free tier” model may be changing, and how the new wave could impact how websites are hosted.
Moore explains that, in the past, hosting companies used to offer a tier of free web hosting that could be used to build a business and grow their customer base.
That is, the hosting companies would offer customers a “premium” service, but customers could use that tier to build their business.
But now, Moore explains, these same hosting companies will offer a “free” service that allows customers to build and maintain their own servers for free.
The free tier model is being phased out, Moore writes.
That means that many web hosting platforms will no longer offer “premia” services, but instead offer a service with a free plan.
Moore also describes how some of these hosting companies may also have changed their business model in order to offer free tiers of services.
Some of the companies that Moore describes are: Hostapedia, Inc., a company that offers web hosting for businesses and individual users.
Hostapedu also provides hosting for small businesses, but it also provides free tier-based services for its users.