Rick,

Believe me, I understand this hosting economics, specially VFP. Better than You can even imagine :)

The economics You presented is very old-fashioned. There is no any science in Your explanation, so please don't think we are impressed.

You are right: the VFP web market is tiny. But, does this mean it have to stay tiny? Or have to be even tinier? 49$ isn't lot of money for the website, as You said and I agree, if website is making money. But what about websites not making money?? What about running few such sites? Plus licences (per site)...?? Final result: shame, we have VFP-oriented web portals written in PHP!

Right, most ISPs don't know VFP and refuse hosting. And this situation stays the same in last few years. Is situation regarding VFP webhosting really satisfying You?? For me, it's tragedy. In 2000 I was paying 30$/month for VFP webhosting. Now is 49$/month. Great, ha? Agree, co-location is better option here. I even run my own VFP webserver on DSL&DynDNS - but only because I can't help myself on better way. On the other side, since 1999 I have the same PHP&MySQL shared hosting privider, great service, few $/month, rock solid.

What I am trying to say is:
There are many VFP desktop developers around which are, by default, potentialy VFP web developers. They need cheap, reliable and supported shared VFP webserver for easy and quick startup! This startup doesn't means website making money from 1st day, how could? Means few MB of space, means limited bandwith, means small traffic... No one commercial ISP can't offer this, because they are all in Your economics. I am suggesting to WWWC, AFP and FoxWeb makers to think about it, find some solution here: support the community, give developers chance to try VFP webtools online. After that, many of them will buy You licences and will go to the $49/month hostings or co-locate own server. And then will be enough VFP developers online and $49 will become acceptable 20$...

I am talking all this in my best manner: my VFP webhostings are dying, one by another, no matter is this $30 or $49/month. And there is no any new VFP hosting service on horizont. Maybe because economics changes a lot...

Regards,
Drazen Z.
- freelance web developer -