The TANSTAAFL Principle

CROSSWINDS

Is Crosswinds an exception to the TANSTAAFL Principle?

1. Overview
2. Description
3. Advertising Policy
4. Performance Concerns

• Corporate background
  • Homepage: home.crosswinds.net
  • Run by: Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.
  • Snail mail address: 46 St. Clair East, Suite #303; Toronto, Ontario; M4T-1M9; Canada
  • Email address: webmaster@crosswinds.net, see the Contact Us page for more
    
  • Founded by: Scott Holmes (scott@crosswinds.net)
  • Date founded: October 1997
  • Motto: "Your Gateway to the Web!"

• Services offered
  • Hard drive space: unlimited
  • CGI access: no
  • CGI scripts: counter, guestbook (coming soon), email form (coming soon)
  • Subdirectories: yes
  • Email: yes, POP3 and web-based
  • Uploads via: FTP, online file manager
  • Online editor: yes

• Policies
  • Advertisements: none required, except for commercial sites
  • Privacy policy: all personal information collected is for internal use only [source]
    
  • Commercial sites: allowed, but with restrictions. Maximum 25MB of space, and text link/banner ad required on main page. [Source]

• Technical details
  • Member URL: http://www.crosswinds.net/Areaname/~Username
    (changing to username.crosswinds.net soon)
  • Member email address: username@areaname.crosswinds.net
  • Server software: BSD Unix running Apache
  • Performance: Pretty slow

"Crosswinds is a group of people who use the Internet and World Wide Web, just like you," the About Us page states. "Each of us has different knowledge and experience, but we all found the same thing - it pretty much sucks in some way. We decided to do something about it, so Crosswinds was the result."

Crosswinds could be the perfect FWP. It offers unlimited space with no advertising requirements at all. What else could a user want? The two caveats, however, are a longish URL and a maddeningly slow system (at least for now). Crosswinds is one of the only FWPs that doesn't not fit the TANSTAAFL Principle. With Crosswinds, you can get a free lunch - or at least a free snack.

The Crosswinds Philosophy. Crosswinds has published an excellent manifesto. Some excerpts:

We believe the Internet should be free for the public. Since it is very obvious that big business is doing everything possible to cash in on the Internet, why not make them pay for you to use it? We think they should.
[...]
We believe you are not 'users', rather you are people. Without you Crosswinds would be just a group of people wasting space in a small building. We are not going to horde the money we make from advertising. After all, it is you who are looking at them. Instead we will use the money to upgrade our lines, buy more computers, have contests, etc. It is for you that we exist, and this is something we believe most companies have forgotten. If, at any time, you wish to know what we are up to, how we are going to spend our money, e-mail us, it's no secret.

My not so humble opinion. Once Crosswinds irons out its performance problems, it should become the premier FWP. Hopefully Crosswinds will be able to keep up with the growth.

Crosswinds' ad policy is what separates it from other FWPs. Non-commercial sites are not required to show any advertisements at all. They don't even have to acknowledge Crosswinds at all! Commercial sites are required to show ads, but they are relatively unintrusive and only required on some pages. Watermarks and pop-ups are unheard of here.

Where does Crosswinds' money come from? Since Crosswinds in non-profit, all income it recieves goes towards maintaining the service and buying new equipment. Crosswinds is supported mostly by advertising on its core pages. However, Crosswinds is not entirely self-sufficient -- its webmasters still have to chip in some money to keep it operational. Nevertheless, Crosswinds is in a position where it should never, ever have to impose advertising on all its member pages.

The biggest complaint against Crosswinds is its slooooooowwwww speed. Crosswinds is currently undergoing renovations and upgrades. The core pages have been moved to a different server (home.crosswinds.net) while member pages remain on www and www2. Still, the real problem is a lack of bandwidth. This should be resolved in the coming months. (Note: As I'm writing this on the morning of August 15, 1998, Crosswinds seems to be much faster than GeoCities. Hmmm...)