I used to have a lot of respect for Homestead; they gave ordinary web-users a chance to develop their own sites with out the need to know any HTML and Javascripts etc, for free. My first encounter with Homestead sites was when I used a chat program called Worlds. A lot of other users had websites on the Homestead domain, so I decided to take a look and see what all the fuss was about. I didnt actually sign up at the time as I was learning HTML and also using a drag and drop editor to do my site. But still these sites intregued me! They were always colourful and fun to look at. The downside was that they were chronically slow to download because most people shoved loads of uncompressed pictures and animated gifs onto them, and in common with other WYSYWYG designers, Homestead added a lot of excess code into its HTML.

Around about April 2000, I started a Homestead site out of interest (by this time, I was competant with HTML) and found it to be a fun experience, so I downloaded the site designer for use offline (this is getting somewhere, believe me!). Amongst the usual 'newsletters' (spam!) I recieved from the company, was this. An email from their CEO, Justin Kitch, on the 12th of June, 2001, saying that they were to start charging site users to keep their sites on Homestead's servers. He comes across as being quite sincere on here saying that they want to let the users decide how much they were willing to pay, and that a several months notice will be given before the subscription service comes into being.

At around the same time, I happened to notice that the free downloadable site builder had suddenly vanished. Now Homestead was holding the users sites to ransom. I can understand that a lot of sponsorship is required to keep a business like Homestead going, and at the time a lot of free web services were going under because they weren't viable any more. But to force users to pay up or lose their sites is unforgivable. A lot of users were upset by having to create a new site from scratch elsewhere; except if the site was less than 8megs and no more than 3 pages (the Preview version as they call it, which is still free). Homestead didnt have an FTP facility on their free sites, so users couldnt download their files that way either. I uploaded the site builder (a real beast - it weighed in at 10 megs lol) to a geocities site as a series of zip files and publicised this on forums, and also reccomended the use of site-rippers (offline browsers that download all content). On Homestead's own forum, I did the same, but came back the next day to find my postings had been deleted!! Was this the whole point then, to con (mostly) non technical people into paying to keep their sites, because they are unaware of how to get them back?. I think so. I also think its downright low to do this and that Justin Kitch owes these people not just an apoplogy, but the right to all the files that make up their sites so they can put them elsewhere. After all, they were the ones that put Homestead up there at the top. Perhaps Mr kitch got to big for his boots and decided to crap on them all.