One phrase that gets tossed around a lot in web hosting is “oversold”. This is what happens when a web host is selling more server space than they actually have got, in the hope that their clients will never actually use the full offer that they bought into.

Take this as an example. Tom had a pie that he cut into six pieces. Tom’s problem is that he wants to give pie slices to twelve of his friends. When all of his friends show up to eat some pie, he gives each of his twelve friends a half of a pie slice and promises them if they need more pie they can have it. Tom’s problem?

He only had one pie – so he hopes his friends get full off that half a slice.

Now why does this happen? Well with prices for hosting getting cheaper and the offers for hosting as far as disk space and bandwidth go getting bigger, some web hosts don’t have any other choice.

From a purely visual side by side comparison if one place offers you 50 GB of space for five dollars and another offers you 150 GB of space for five dollars, most people are going to take the bigger offer.

Is there a real future for overselling? In the long haul – I don’t think so. Eventually web hosts are going to run into a bottle neck of what they can really promise in comparison with the technology that is out there. My hope is that people actually start to grow suspicious of such offers and rise up against it. When your getting a gift though – you don’t want to ask why or how your getting it, you just take it and smile.

For that one simple fact, the future of overselling might be a little longer in the tooth than expected.