For so many years, hosting has been the main function of a web hosting site ensuring that the site gets published on the net with a minimum downtime and allowing enough traffic bandwidth to make like easy for online surfers visiting the sites it is hosting. 

These days, consumer webhosting assumes other functions that put it in the league of industrial strength web hosting solutions.  Starting with alternative redundancy for disaster recovery, all the way to ancillary website management functions like SEO and e-commerce support, web hosting has become an enterprise suite on it own. 

With the current financial crisis and people losing their jobs or getting pay cuts and unpaid forced leaves, there are more opportunities for e-commerce for new business startups right from the home.  Consultancy services and small cottage industries are best served with online marketing. 

Web hosting services focused on the consumer markets should be equipping themselves with the right skill set to help laid-off workers become more entrepreneurial right form the home and on the internet.  Who says nothing good will come out of economic crisis?