Hosting is apparently sinking lower than the Titanic…

I was looking at a provider (for a testing project) who advertises here and saw this in their terms of service.

Billing and Payments:

You agree to pay *host name* in advance for the services to be rendered. Subsequent payments are due on the anniversary date of your plans term. You agree that until and unless you notify us using the proper cancellation form for all services received, those services are considered active, billable, and will be billed on a recurring basis. Client agrees to all annual and longer term recurring charges that are not canceled at least 45 days before the next renewal date. It is your responsibility to ensure that your payment information is up to date, and that all invoices are paid on time. *Host name* reserves the right to bill your credit card or information on file. We are not responsible for any fees accessed on the client by their bank as a result of the client’s account being invoiced. *Host name* provides a 5 day grace period from the time invoices are generated, however invoices not paid by due date are subject to a late fee of $5 (five dollars USD) plus 10% (ten percent) interest of the past due amount. Service will be interrupted on accounts that are 5 days past due. Service interrupted for nonpayment will remain disconnected until the account balance or contract term is paid in full.

Invoices that are paid more than once or any other over-payments can only be added as credit towards the account and can not be refunded. Any dispute to a credit card charge aka chargeback, wrongful or intentional, will result in a $100 administrative fee in addition to the disputed charge before service can be restored. We may request payment in cashiers check or money order before restoring service. All billing disputes must be reported within 30 days of the time the dispute occurred. *Host name* may temporarily deny service or terminate this Agreement upon the failure of client to pay charges when due. Such termination or denial will not relieve client of responsibility for the payment of all accrued charges, plus reasonable interest and any collection fees.

There is no refund for shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS, reseller plans.

To me these ToS sound almost draconian….but it’s not my first time seeing them. On the contrary I’ve seen more and more providers with similar terms in the past few years, and it made me reflect on how hosting has (seemingly) only gone downhill since I opened my first website back in 2010-2011 - when no host I used had terms as harsh as these. It’s pretty sad.