I don't program a lot. Just some PHP here and there, mainly these days.
The thing I've started to notice is that, back in the day, it was WELL worth it to get a dedicated or colocated server, especially for the adult world.
These days, however, I'm really wondering what the advantage is unless you're a content provider. Script usage of system resources isn't all that high, and you can get 1-4TB/mo on virtual hosts opposed to mainly 1TB on a dedicated server for about 15x the price (excluding plans with MBPS bandwidth as opposed to allotments). Am I way off or right in thinking that wow, if my server drain goes up that much, I'll just plop my own server up with power backup, redundant connections, and redundant geographic data locations STILL for less than the hundreds of dollars per month for a dedicated server through someone else.
Convince me I'm wrong, I wanna know why.
