A reasonable question

For me :-

* Excellent reliability (no unscheduled downtime in 6 years from 3 to at one point more than a dozen nodes)

* Excellent hardware - when I've benchmarked real production systems on Linode on a $/perf ratio beats DO hands down

* Excellent support - tickets are generally answered in under 30 minutes and staff are knowledgeable

* It just works(TM)

* Straightforward interface and pricing

* Rock solid network, like bulletproof

* I trust them (after 6 years of the above they have earned it)

For me:

a) Average reliability - had numerous incidents at their London and Fremont DCs. And the complete inability to tell me what was happening in a timely manner was pretty unacceptable.

b) Average support - they will answer the simple questions very quickly. But anything reasonably complex they will actually not bother responding at all.

It's been sweet sailing for me for years, maybe you should try one of their other datacenters instead of complaining about Fremont.

Edit: Their support is top of the line.