[Yawgm0th]

Originally Posted by Enderandrew

Well, you said that most people have enough parts laying around to build a spare system.

There you go, twisting it again... Not all people are enthusiasts (and not all enthusiasts are people ). In my experience, most enthusiasts do have enough lying around to put together a cheap machine (assuming they don't have a spare) or at least enough that they're short $10-$50 worth of stuff to get one running. Regardless of that, it doesn't take $300 to build a suitable web server, unless you're going to continously have dozens of simultaneous hits. I could throw together a Sempron 1500 system for under $200, using new parts. Under $150 using parts thats virtually all enthusiasts have and many non-enthusiast have. Under $100 using spare parts I have lying around. Something with used parts (not spare ones, purchased from friends/retailers/eBay/etc.) that would be more suitable for a web server, say anything from a K6-2 to a low-end socket A Duron or maybe a Pentium 3, could cost under $100 or even under $50.

Originally Posted by Enderandrew

Building a cheap system will run $300, or more. Using a full seperate computer for web-hosting also means using a router or switch, and exposing your home network more so to hacker threats.

Not thats ironic. You're exposed if you aren't already using a router or switch, or at least a hardware firewall of some sort (which is no cheaper than a router). Having a public web site doesn't make you anymore exposed, it just makes you a potential target, but it's very unlikely anyone with the skills to bypass a hardware firewall would even care about some measily web site that doesn't affect them.

Originally Posted by Enderandrew

It also means using up bandwidth.

Highly irrelevant unless you'll actually use many GBs a month or have many hits at once or want to have really large files used. Not everyone needs much bandwidth, in fact most smaller web sites don't need nearly the bandwidth (in terms of total Bs/months and bit/second) offered by a cable or DSL service.

Originally Posted by Enderandrew

$5 a month for a professional web host. 58k of your bandwidth, and a dedicated PC, and electricty from running a new PC in your house 24/7. That's EASILY over $5 a month.

Spare PC that's already running 24/7 = $0 (worth less than $50 anyway)
Cable service already payed for = $0
Domain name = $5
The ability to have instant access to your server and guarantee no downtime as long as your Internets up, not to mention have many GBs of space (as opposed to 2000MB) = Priceless
For everything else, there's web hosting, which makes sense if getting a spare PC for next to nothing is hard/impossible, if you don't have broadband, or if you actually need considerable bandwidth.
Me for using cliche Master Card commercial parody