Why can hosting be ethical?
Most people just want a site. They don’t care how it gets setup or what goes on behind the scenes at the administrative end of their regular hosting service. The fact is, ethical hosting isn’t sought after enough and people just don’t know why they should consider how ethical their website is. Going forward, ethical hosting is going to become the only way to host. Just as fair-trade coffee has become the ‘standard’ for coffee shops, ethical and responsible hosting is slowly coming into view of the public eye as the new standard.
How can hosting be ethical?
By supporting good causes through the income made from hosting monthly fees, your hosting provider can actively utilise the ever popular crowd funding phenomenon to put a percentage of its own profits towards good and ethical causes including tree planting, charitable work & charitable donations.
Is ethical hosting for everybody?
The idea of ethical hosting is for everybody; however in practice not everybody feels the need to look for ethical hosting. The fact is the average person doesn’t really put that much thought into their hosting and domain name provider. Most people in fact leave it to their web developer or person in charge of their website. Users are becoming more and more computer savvy however and this is starting to change. Nowadays, many web hosting providers ethical or not, provide some kind of website builder. This makes web development easy or at least easier for individuals to set up and maintain their own website without the need for more complicated coding. With advancements in technology, access to media, fair search engine optimisation and our ever changing environmental and economical climate, new web site owners are increasingly making conscious and informed choices.
What other ways can you be ethical online?
It is easy to be ethical online; being ethical does not require active participation in any way. It simply means, considering choices and the plethora of options before choosing. Everyone is constantly presented with options and decisions that are generally made in an instant, especially when the stakes are not high. The only prerequisite for being an ethical internet user is that you are a good person, and a small amount of consideration is undergone before making any snap decisions. So, for example one can consider factors such as the distance a bought item has to be shipped and what is its carbon footprint, who is manufacturing the item, is the labour fair-trade and where does the company’s profit go?
How ethical can domain names be, really?
You would be right in thinking domain names, and choosing domain names is a trivial and non impactful procedure. There really is not much profit to be made by any company from the registry of domain names, but there is some profit, and on mass, that profit can amount to a lot. Therefore, individuals small and barely noticeable transactions are actually contributing to the pool of profit which can, in the right hands, be used for good causes including green causes such as carbon neutralising activities like planting trees.
What’s the difference between green and ethical hosting?
Ethical hosting is a broad term and green hosting is a specific term. Green hosting falls in the category of ethical hosting without a doubt, and is very fashionable at the moment. Hosting providers are capitalising on people’s desires to feel less guilty about the amount they waste in the home and at work. It is good that green hosting is becoming more popular, but in the grand scheme of things to be good in the world does not come down to simply how green you are. Many charities, concentrate on aspects of humanity which don’t even fall into the green category, such as finding cures for diseases, providing education in poor countries, helping kids with learning disabilities and the list goes on. This is why Pivotal hosting does both charity work and green and carbon neutralising tree planting side by side.
What is the future for ethical hosting?
If the trend set by green hosting is anything to go by, ethical website hosting, as it implies green and more will continue to grow. As green hosting become a saturated market and become the standard, so too will upstarts and industry giants’ alike jump on board with the bigger picture first realised right here at Pivotal Hosting.