Another blog post update here; we don’t really update the blog all that often since most updates are minor enough that they can be announced within the UserCP but we feel this one needs a blog post.

So, the long awaited host additions are here, finally! It’s been a tough ride with all the background developments that we’ve had of late, and the entire addition process has been delayed. But not anymore, we plan to get things back in order very soon. There’s 3 new hosts additions today, and more will follow in the coming weeks. You’ll notice the new hosts on the main page as well as within the UserCP.

More importantly, you will have noticed that we’ve recently (about 2 days or so) switched to a different payment vendor, Paymentwall. They seem to offer us the flexibility we need as well as the convenience and a seamless integration. They’ve been very easy and helpful to work with, too. Unfortunately, this comes at a price. The commission % we end up paying them, now, is more than what we were paying previously and to avoid going into a loss we will have to raise prices of our accounts. We’ve considered all alternatives and the price raise has been the only feasible one that we’ve managed to come up with. We’ve decided, however, on a minimal raise; just enough to be able to cover the extra commission charge. The planned raise is going to be something like this:

1 Month Account – $8.99 [Previously $7.99]
3 Month Account – $26.00 [Previously $23.50]
6 Month Account – $45.00 [Previously $40.00]
1 Year Account – $85.00 [Previously $78.00 - Available on custom request only]

We will compensate for the price raise in the coming weeks with additional host support, beyond the 3 we’ve just added today. This price raise will go into effect on Monday, the 26th Of March. If you’ve been planning on renewing, now would be a good time!

Once again, this raise is something we have tried to delay as much as possible but we must now implement it to avoid running into financial issues in the coming weeks. Should we move from Paymentwall or negotiate a different commission rate with them, we’ll lower these prices back to their original levels once again.

It has been a while since I’ve done a blog post, to be honest. I almost forgot an official blog existed since the UserCP news updates have been far more convenient for regular updates.

But then, I couldn’t possibly put this post in the UserCP, believe me. It’s going be a longer read than your average post. I sincerely hope you’ll bear with me on this.

Not a week has passed since Megaupload.com was taken down by the US government (and most of their employees arrested) on multiple criminal counts, including piracy and money laundering. This has since caused, what most know it as, a domino effect. Seeing the downfall of Megaupload on what could be considered similar legal issues, most filehosts have either shut off their sites completely or disabled any and all mention of affiliate programs from their sites. I’ll try to outline the changes that I’m aware of, although given the current volatility of changes, my information may end up being out of date a few days from now.

The following filehosts have completely turned off filesharing. No files can be downloaded from their sites:
Filesonic
Fileserve
Filejungle
UploadStation
UploadBox
x7.to

The following hosts are either down or have blocked all of USA:
Megaupload (permanently down)
Uploaded.to (blocked all of USA)

The following hosts are still up (with or without an affiliate program):
Rapidshare
WUpload
TurboBit
ZShare
Hotfile
Megashares
Netload
Filefactory
Crocko
Filepost
Uploading
Freakshare
Bitshare
Letitbit

So, the main idea of this blog post was for us to outline how these changes affect us, our service, and our members. Put in the most precise manner that I can – it does not affect anyone at all. Our service is going nowhere. It stays. We are still going to serve our customers and adapt to changes as we see necessary.

Essentially, only a handful of major filehosts have gone down. While this could be considered a major setback, it is also only temporary. The existing filehosts will either take their place or new ones will pop up. It always happens, there’s no reason it won’t happen now. Uploaders will change and adapt. The ones that were doing it primarily for the money may drop out, the ones that did it out of goodwill will come back in. If you could find 10,000 links for a file yesterday, tomorrow you’ll only find 1,000. You might have to search and look around two times as hard, but beyond that, nothing changes.

At this point, it’s too soon to make changes at Rapid Premium. We’re going to be closely monitoring everything and we’ll see if we can deduce a pattern within the next week or two. Based on that, we’ll add/change/drop filehosts as necessary. Making any changes right now would be pretty illogical given the volatility of changes at this point. The idea here is to take steps once all of this has blown over. And while it does, remember, we’re here to help. Anything you need, just head over to the helpdesk, open a ticket, and we will get back to you.

As much as it sounds like this has been a setback for us too, it has not. In fact, at this point, it makes greater sense to subscribe to our service (or one similar to ours) then to buy an account at an individual filehost. With a pricing that no other competitor can match (given the after sales support), it’s a no-brainer to invest with us because we will continue to evolve and adapt to the changes. One filehost, alone, cannot do that. And that same filehost going down does not affect us in any way or form. If anything, we have backups. Wherever the trend moves to, we’ll adapt to move with.