Hi. As some of you apparently found out a bit before I expected, I've decided to shut down BlockNet hosting. I'm posting this mostly to clarify some things, and also to let you ask me questions if you need.
When
Shared BlockNet servers are set to simultaneously be shut down on September 14th. People still have access to their files until then. People who had dedicated nodes will have until their next bill was set to be due before their nodes are shut down.
Why
A lot of different reasons.
The main reason recently is that I've been having financial troubles lately that have made managing BlockNet difficult. I originally built BlockNet with a small profit in mind, but I underestimated the expenses and the service ended up just barely breaking even. Rather than going back and raising the prices post-release, I just rolled with it. However, because some months lose money; this has made finances especially difficult for me.
The second reason would be that I'm completely dissatisfied with the state the service was in. I made BlockNet almost two years ago, and I've learned a huge amount since then. I built the service in a way that it can't really be improved. I want to start over from the beginning, make a web-based interface and make ssh access just an optional feature. Many people didn't seem to be savvy enough to understand the ssh based method and understandably didn't stay with the service. However, I don't have the time or motivation to rebuild the service from scratch again.
The last reason would be that I'm just tired of running it. Part of the aforementioned reason was because I failed to design the service in way that it made it low-maintenance for myself. It takes too much of my time, at least it does for something I do for virtually no profit.
The future
I don't want the community to be left in the dark. I'm really hoping someone fills the managed service gap soon so that people have an option for powerful hosting without needing to know how to manage your own VPS. This kind of service is essential to the community because it allows people without vast technical know-how to host high quality servers and greatly increases the opportunities for new great servers to show up.
I don't really want to release the BlockNet framework. Three sections above I explained that the service is basically stuff under the hood. Releasing would be embarrassing because it would show just how much I didn't understand about some things two years ago. However, it's not out of the question. If a stopgap service is desperately needed, I'm willing to hand off the framework to someone competent to run it until a suitable replacement has been developed.
I'm still planning to host my own servers (Boss Battles) for the foreseeable future by myself. However, I may decide to switch to someone's shiny new hosting service if one arises.
