True this is not entirely in the hands of the hosting provider as they do not know what kind of scripts you will execute. They also cannot anticipate any spurts in traffic that will arise from the websites of some users. As a result hosting providers are often not to blame for occasional lower performance.

But this does not give the hosting provider a license to deliver poor speeds consistently. Look at the description of the servers and they will sound scarily powerful. But does the host tell you about the number of other users on the same server. Quite likely not. Does the host tell you that there are a gazillion other ftp accounts running on that server? Once again, quite likely not.

These and other such factors can substantially diminish the speed of your site. And along with that, you diminish the experience of your user. This leads to lowered reader loyalty, resulting in lowered traffic.

As you can see that is a spiraling effect straight to webmaster hell.

What is the solution? Well there are several: For one you could go with the thousand year old, time tested method of asking around. If people you trust recommend a certain hosting provider then that could be the one you choose too. Alternatively, you can go with the method of investigation. What you can do is to "ping" the server and find out how much time it takes for the server to respond.

So, have I made my case for fast hosting? If not, here is something I want you to visualize: You spend all those hours of hard work developing that great content and visually exciting site. Maybe you write a blog where you pour your emotion out. At the end of all that hard work, what do you expect? The two most likely answers are readership and income. Regardless of which one you choose, it should be obvious that traffic is what you are looking for. Quality traffic, repeat visitors, and loyal audience - these are the dream goals of any webmaster.

Having a slow loading site is not going to allow you to achieve that dream goal.