Why do Americans usually prefer American hosting companies?

Why do Americans usually prefer American hosting companies?
As the title says, I'm under the impression most American customers are biased towards using an American hosting company. Why do you think it is? It can't be traffic latency, that period is over... I understand latency might be important for mission-critical applications such as the ones used by banks or some other large corporations, but SME or individuals... I mean, especially in the country of capitalism, one would think customers would choose the best offer, not the best American offer.

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The reasons I could think of are:
- Patriotism
- It's reassuring to share the culture of the hosting company
- There's a hope to have support in good English
- There's a lack of trust in foreign companies

...but all this does seem far-fetched...honestly I don't understand. Internet is more or less borderless, but we imprison ourselves in the old model.

Please note, I'm conscious this is the same case in other countries; people of country X tend to use hosting companies of country X, this is not an American-only phenomenon. I'm asking about Americans just because they seem to be the majority here. Other countries' users, please respond with your own experience/feeling, thanks!
Like you mentioned, look at it the other way around. Why do Europeans prefer European hosting companies? This can go for anyone. Surely latency does matter, why host your site 200ms away when it can be 10ms away? Maybe they want support in the same time zone so they don't have to wait till it's daytime in EU for sales/billing? Each country has different laws regarding data too, that can be a big factor depending on what type of content is hosted. Maybe some U.S. people don't want to deal with EU laws? There can be a dozen different reasons.
A ping to an american google server gives me a round-trip time of 5 ms. Pinging to a Yahoo server in my country (I'm in Asia) gives me a round-trip time of ... 9ms. So really, not a good reason.
Also, I've hosted sites all over the world, never thought once "wow this country is super slow". It's a fantasy. For like 99.99% of web sites, no one could tell the difference whether the site is hosted here or there. Backbones between countries/continents are huge now.

Support: most companies now offer 24h support.

Laws are different, but you know that all friend countries basically have the same kind of laws. I mean, you can't host copyrighted material on a German server or on a Singaporean server. And then, I guess laws are more a concern to the host than to the guest.

For the dozen reasons, I'd like to read them.
A ping to an american google server gives me a round-trip time of 5 ms. Pinging to a Yahoo server in my country (I'm in Asia) gives me a round-trip time of ... 9ms. So really, not a good reason.

Also, I've hosted sites all over the world, never thought once "wow this country is super slow". It's a fantasy. For like 99.99% of web sites, no one could tell the difference whether the site is hosted here or there. Backbones between countries/continents are huge now.

Support: most companies now offer 24h support.

Laws are different, but you know that all friend countries basically have the same kind of laws. I mean, you can't host copyrighted material on a German server or on a Singaporean server. And then, I guess laws are more a concern to the host than to the guest.

For the dozen reasons, I'd like to read them.
What does Google and Yahoo have to do with it though? Of course it will be low latency, they are large companies that use or run a global CDN network. This is in the web hosting section, so if you're asking why Americans prefer to use a U.S. web host than another country, the points still stand. Even with a CDN, if your site is hosted 200ms away it'll still likely be noticeable unless it's all static content. Some do offer 24h support, but not billing/sales. European laws are pretty different than U.S. laws.

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Since you're new here, I am not going to go back and forth, spend a few bucks to host your site in Asia if you're in Europe. Report back in a month.
Well, no problem for you not to respond anymore, I understand. I, however, will respond.
I have tried pinging to hosting companies in the US from here, it's all the same result: low latency. Where should I ping to?
I don't understand what kind of laws could worry a customer. I understand a host should be worried, since they're first line and receive the complaints and notices, but a customer?

I've hosted contents in a different continent than mine for 5 years now. Overall satisfied, site-response wise. I'm about to move for other reasons though (price). This is only my experience and I can't generalize based solely on it, but if others experienced differently, I'd like to hear about it.

Since I won't get a response from you, I hope others will chime in.
For the same reason I'd order a physical product from here in the US than abroad. Physical goods make the issue more obvious - it takes longer to source something out of the country than in it. While the difference is much smaller when it comes to the internet / routing / latency - the difference does exist.

Let's say that you host on a server exactly half way around the world and that you have a good optical connection [ fiber ] from you to your server with no devices in the middle - no interruptions - and that the light within travels at exactly the speed of light. Your ping to said server could not possibly be faster than 0.13 Seconds or 130 milliseconds. It would take light traveling at the fastest possible speed 0.13 seconds to travel from point A to B and back to A again. As far as we know - nothing can travel faster than light according to modern physics.

In the real situation there will not be a singular connection and there will be multiple devices between you and the destination that all add a little bit of latency. Granted internet backbone hardware is designed to add as little latency as possible - it still happens and it is cumulative.

Now make the comparison to a provider that's only 1,000 miles away and has significantly less latency-inducing equipment between you and them. No matter what you do that source half way around the world simply can't compete.

Now granted the difference can be 100ms to 10ms - which is only 90ms and is a tiny amount - it's huge when you talk about the speed at which light or data travels the networks between you and your server.

When you're measuring on the order of milliseconds or nanoseconds - even a small change is huge.
A ping to an american google server gives me a round-trip time of 5 ms. Pinging to a Yahoo server in my country (I'm in Asia) gives me a round-trip time of ... 9ms. So really, not a good reason.
What are you pinging? Their domains or IPs? Where do you host your sites now?
Let me ask a reverse question. Why should they host in another country? If you have two hosts with similar pricing and hardware, one in the US and one outside, what benefit do they have in hosting outside the country?

As mentioned above, in addition to latency (the examples given were best case, but it is often not that ideal), there are support hours, wanting to stay with privacy and other laws they are familiar with, hosting their site in the same country as their customers might be, wanting to support "local" companies, and on and on and on.

So what benefit is there to hosting somewhere else?
It probably makes more sense to American customers to have their data subjected to American laws, prices are in the same currency, similar business hours for sales, etc.
There may be several reasons:
1) low latency
2) pricing
3) quality of the hosting
4) local support
5) ease of access
The American web hosting companies give you the best deals. By deals, I mean the best overall value for whatever you pay. They create the hosting standards, and lead the industry in terms of standards. This hapends due to the highest level of competition here. Everyone is adding premium features in their services to attract more customers than his competitior.

I think that following are the reasons that make the US people choose hosting from their own country.
1. Best Value.
2. Low Latency.
3. Quality of Service.
4. Many US hosting companies provide hosting in multiple locations around the world so even if somebody wants to host outside of the US, he can use a company that has servers in the foreign locations as well.
5. Local Language (which is also considered an international language).
6. Local Currency (which is also considred an international currency).
7. Same Time Zone or the Hours of Support.
8. Your data remains in your own country.
9. You are exposed more to the services of the comapies of your own country than those of a foreign country.
10. Patriotism (maybe).
I think they prefer it for Location of server because of they also use various non-US companies like Hetzner, etc.

As per my experience, I do not buy hosting from my country because of following reasons: (And I think this reason is same for all other people)

1. If price is low in other country then I will prefer to buy from that country.
2. Stability of server.
3. TAX. (If you don't want to pay tax on server then you will prefer to buy server/hosting from other country)
4. Timing: When you are sleeping your provider is working in Datacenter. (i) Another reason: In night, Open ticket with your provider and when you will wakeup, Your work will be done. You just need to check it. (I really like this, I asked to my provider while I was going to sleep, I wake-up in morning and saw that they completed migration of server, Installed OS on my new server so I don't need to eagerly wait for them.
(ii) - Think that you are going to sleep, You gave some work but you know that your provider is from same country and they will start work in morning. So you need to wait till next evening when your work will be completed.


Factor to chose hosting from America by American people:
1. More payment method.
2. Easy to do transaction with some gateways like mobile payment and local bank to bank payment.
3. Patriotism (I am not confirm about it).
There may be several reasons:
1) low latency
2) pricing
3) quality of the hosting
4) local support
5) ease of access
Why do I think those can't offer best from any other region!
Uh yeah, why would you think that? American companies do not have a monopoly on best price, best performance, best quality, etc.
1. If price is low in other country then I will prefer to buy from that country.
2. Stability of server.
3. TAX. (If you don't want to pay tax on server then you will prefer to buy server/hosting from other country)
4. Timing: When you are sleeping your provider is working in Datacenter. (i) Another reason: In night, Open ticket with your provider and when you will wakeup, Your work will be done. You just need to check it. (I really like this, I asked to my provider while I was going to sleep, I wake-up in morning and saw that they completed migration of server, Installed OS on my new server so I don't need to eagerly wait for them.
(ii) - Think that you are going to sleep, You gave some work but you know that your provider is from same country and they will start work in morning. So you need to wait till next evening when your work will be completed.


Factor to chose hosting from America by American people:
1. More payment method.
2. Easy to do transaction with some gateways like mobile payment and local bank to bank payment.
All very good points!! I hadn't thought of the local payment gateways, this is indeed something foreign companies can't offer and that is convenient for local users.

For the rest (why to choose a server overseas), I think the same.

As for low latency, which seems to be a recurring reason...

I've worked in WAN IP networks for a little more than 10 years (large telecom company... to give you a hint, that's the one which invented the telephone in 1876  ). Once, a customer (a large bank) was a bit angry because they had a ping response of more than 30ms on the line we had just delivered to their site. We told them that below 200ms was considered acceptable and there was little we could do about it (they said ok after a few days of explanations).

Now, we're talking some serious business here; 2 large corporations, leased line circuit worth thousands of dollars monthly for a few Mbps (traffic doesn't go through the internet but only within carriers' backbone) with COS1. And 200ms is acceptable.

I've tried pinging dreamhost servers (6ms) Tier.net servers (7ms), they are 3000 miles away from me (I write 3000, might be 4000, haven't verified). Latency shouldn't be a concern at this level. It was a concern 10 years ago, but now...

In the real situation there will not be a singular connection and there will be multiple devices between you and the destination that all add a little bit of latency. Granted internet backbone hardware is designed to add as little latency as possible - it still happens and it is cumulative.

Now make the comparison to a provider that's only 1,000 miles away and has significantly less latency-inducing equipment between you and them. No matter what you do that source half way around the world simply can't compete.
Due to the inner nature of the IP protocol and its routing, geographic location has less impact than the routing algorythms in the middle. And there is bad routing here and there. Even with provider DC plugged directly into a carrier interexchange node, once it goes into the internet, all latency bets are off. You can see really abnormal response anywhere, in the good sense or the wrong. I'm of the opinion that just thinking "far = slow" is not correct; distance introduces a delay, but it's negligible compared to the other factors. I see good and bad response locally, good and bad response overseas all the time. There is no consistent rule on the matter that I've witnessed, personnally.
Where do you host your sites now?
Oh I'm hosting in the US. 5 years ago, there was no question of who offered the best service. Performance-wise it's ok, there is the occasional lag or even site down but it's obvious that's because they cram hundreds of customers on the same server. I've been lazy, not changing sooner to an other hosting company, but now I'm feeling ripped-off by their price so I'm really going to change.

Oh and they offer 24/7/365 support, still takes them more than 4 hours to pick-up my tickets. It's alright though, I really don't mind, I raise a ticket before going to bed and I have the answer the next day. It's ok. 4 hours, in the great scheme of things...

(disclaimer: I'm now working for a future hosting company, so I'm biased and I'll host with my company obviously))

If you have two hosts with similar pricing and hardware, one in the US and one outside, what benefit do they have in hosting outside the country?
Sure, but my point was "what if there is a better offer elsewhere than in the US?". It looks to me that customers would still go for a US company, and so was wondering why.
The reasons I could think of are:
- Patriotism
- It's reassuring to share the culture of the hosting company
- There's a hope to have support in good English
- There's a lack of trust in foreign companies
Patriotism is almost never a reason. The only people crying "patriotism" are usually the same people that outsource as much as possible. Hypocrites. So put that reason into the trashcan right now.

Share the culture? That's a strange reason. No.

English support is probably the #2 reason. It's a reason for me. When a U.S.-based companies employs outsourced overseas foreigners that can't speak/read/write the language well, I get pissed. If I wanted to deal with that, I'd have gotten my service in some other country. But I didn't, on purpose. That extends to everything, not just hosting. The one I find most ironic is that American Express, the credit card, outsourced to India, and there's often a "language" (dialect/accent) barrier on the phone. Hence why I rarely use that card.

There's a lack of confidence in all companies, foreign or domestic.

The #1 reason is marketing. The budgets are large, and on various media in-country. Go to any other country, and it's the same story. The local media advertises/etc the local companies. It's really that easy. So all people in the US really know is the US companies they're aware of.

The #3 reason is legalities. Most people/companies don't want to deal with BS foreign laws (like GDPR), we have enough of our own to comply with. (The ridiculous idea of "offshore" is also from this same criteria, people that seemingly don't understand all countries have laws.)

This all said, I've been hosting with EU companies for 15 years now, in addition to US companies. Also some other locales. Quality and support are my primary concerns.

Ping isn't necessarily a useful test. You can easily get a false impression using it.

Factor to chose hosting from America by American people:
1. More payment method.
2. Easy to do transaction with some gateways like mobile payment and local bank to bank payment.
Payment gateways can be part of it, but with things like Paypal, or even standard Visa/MC, it's rarely an issue.
The #1 reason is marketing. The budgets are large, and on various media in-country. Go to any other country, and it's the same story. The local media advertises/etc the local companies. It's really that easy. So all people in the US really know is the US companies they're aware of.
Right. Yup. I think you nailed it, chances are high this is very true.
Wouldn't add/change much to kpmedia's post above.

The fact is that in my country (Serbia), most people go with local hosting companies (99.9 % of whom just rent dedicated servers in Germany/Holland):
it's more familiar, support is in native language and they've heard of them. Guess it's similar in most other countries, including the USA.

Comparing price/quality, I've opted for a US company (not a Serbian one). However, the fact is that most visitors to my website are from USA, so that's even helpful.

Having said that, comparing average page load times from Google Analytics doesn't seem to show any "serious" time penalty for the website version in my native, that gets 99.9% of the visits from Europe (while the hosting server is US based), compared to the English language website "version" (separate subdomain). In fact, EU visitor site version had shorter page load times (probably for a more uniform visitor base, with more quality Net connection comparing to the English version that gets visitors from Africa, Australia and Asia as well - would have to look into that more).

Though I use Cloudflare (free package). Current hosting provider even includes CF Railgun with the reseller hosting plan - can't tell how much difference that makes, but will make a test in a few months probably, just to see.
And just to add to my last post, that's the reason it happens. Not that I agree with it, or that it's righteous, or smart, or anything else, but simply why it happens.

Xenophobia also plays a part.

However, I must say, having dealt worldwide for decades, certain European countries are far more xenophobic than the US. Germany is a constant nuisance anytime I try to deal with anyone there. And again, I'm not referring to just hosting. But for hosting, in my experience, Hetzer's attitude sucks, and Leaseweb has shifted that way in the past 10 years. Neither are very friendly outside their own countries.

So, going one further, those large companies like OVH, Hetzner or Leaseweb may act as a souring mechanism, turning off non-EU customers to using EU entities. But again, the reverse is true, being subjected to EIG.
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As far as most other EU countries go, in my knowledge and experience, most people consider US to be "the thing" when it comes to IT. So I don't think xenophobia towards the USA plays a large part there. This goes especially for the eastern and southern EU countries. I'd say it's mostly fear of the foreign language (vs the familiar).

There is a lot of xenophobia, no doubt - well noted - just when it comes to IT business, it's similar to German cars: "that's the car!" Xenophobia is quite hypocritical in my experience, to put it that way.


Plus what I've heard practically every person knowledgeable in hosting say: it's better to have the server located near your (target) visitors (which does make perfect sense as far as I know).

Based on that, I'd certainly recommend any local (EU) business to look for an EU based hosting server for their website. Germany and Holland hosting server locations are what most companies from my country opt for - mostly because local hosting companies rent servers there.

And - not disputing what kpmedia said - for all I could hear, developers and website designers from Serbia are quite happy with Hetzner's VPS and dedicated server hosting. Though I'm sure low price plays a large part there. And the info is from people who go with unmanaged - Hetzner is just supposed to give them login and keep the server plugged in.
Mostly harmless?
I have hosted with non-American companies and research everybody, American or not, whenever I'm looking for a new host.

The main issue is they can't compete apples to apples with the exact same set of features and price.

If I take American Host A with X set of features, and Non-American Host B with the same X set of features...the non-American host has been more expensive. Remember that features include things like uptime, reliability, service, etc. There are cheaper non-American hosts out there, but when they're beating on price they're failing in another major category.

I've used hosts where I had to Google Translate the site, but even getting past that they always had some major failing that wasn't apparent at first blush. Now I ask a lot of pre-purchase questions before trying a non-English-speaking host, and if they can't answer basic questions, goodbye.

Most hosts that can directly compete with American hosts on features and service are in first world European areas with more taxes and laws. So they won't win on price.
I believe Americans are using American providers because more support staff are working during our time zone and it's faster to communicate with people who are fluent in English so basically quicker response and easier communication when you have an issue with the provider you want to solve it ASAP.

I have noticed that companies started to market that they have US based support which people began to value because sometimes it takes forever to explain the issue for a non-fluent speaker.
Isn't that obvious
You must know that whenever someone tries to connect to a website, the it always connects to the dns servers that are closest to them. So the closer the servers are to the target audience, better will be the speed of connectivity. That is the main reason as to why people want to host on servers in the same country.
because sometimes it takes forever to explain the issue for a non-fluent speaker.
It's not just that.

On the phone, nobody wants to speak to somebody that has such a thick accent that it no longer sounds like English whatsoever. I've told many Indian tele-scammers that they suck at their non-job because they can't even communicate well, much less lie and bilk us "dumb Americans" out of money over the phone.

In chat or a support ticket, nothing is more irksome that a phrase like "Thank you to contact support, sorry on delay, please be awaited, submit the needful." Unless you're experience in this sort of gibberish, you probably have no idea what the hell they're trying to say.

Again, I'm not pro-US hosting or anything, but support should, at very least, be able to provide support in the language they're targeting. If the customer comes to you, and knows there's a language barrier, and both of you try, that's one thing. Me going into some other country, advertising hosting, and then expecting them to understand me is another.
It’s fine, let them believe they’re American. The ones they usually go for are either owned by Indians or Russians, but I guess the place of incorporation is what matters.