I took advantage of one of tonight's specials. I quadrupled the disk space and bandwidth allotment on one my existing accounts. Cost a one-time payment of $5.
The account used to be good for up to 110 meg of space, and 6 gig of bandwidth per month. Now it's good for 440 meg of space per month, and 24 gig of bandwidth.
I plan on using this site as a sort of online family photo album, where (for example) my father can log on from his home in Florida to see pictures of his granddaughter's (my niece's) dance recital that took place in New Jersey, or his grandson's (my nephew's) birthday party. Or where my mom can see a picture of how I look in my new jacket. You know, things like that.
Plus, I'm an amateur photographer, and am thinking of setting up a few online portfolios of my work on this site. A collection of photos I took of waterfalls in NY's fingerlakes region, a series on Amish buggies, etc.
I figured a few hundred photos might take up a fair amount of space, especially if I go for high quality on a lot of them, so the extra space is probably worth a paltry one-time $5 fee. If only so that I won't even have to worry about space.
Oh, I was also the winner of one of the more modest prizes Cyberwings' CEO, Shawn, was giving out toward the end of the chat session. A free Individual Hosting Plan 5, for life. (I say modest, as it's worth only a fraction as much as the various AYH and Reseller plans Shawn was giving away. But hey, it's a nice gift and I do appreciate it. I've decided to use it to host my 9MMvs45ACP.com domain.)
I admit, it's hard to understand how Cyberwings can turn a profit, given its pricing structure. That Shawn won't release any financial figures doesn't make things any clearer. (Mind you, it's his right to keep these numbers confidential.) All I really have to go on is Shawn's claim that everything's just fine. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't; without hard numbers to examine, there's no way for any of us to tell for sure. And the almost daily sales and special offers and extension of sales deadlines does give the impression of a company that's a little flaky. Sure, the sales mean lower prices to customers, but an unchanging and comprehensible pricing structure for a few months would help Cyberwings foster an image of stability which some would say it currently lacks.
But so far service has been good. If Cyberwings makes a go of it and becomes bigger than AOL Time Warner, great. If not, and if they go under in a year or so, well, I'll still have gotten more than my money's worth.