The vast majority of businesses around the world have "assets". It is a universal practice to depreciate those assets over their expected lifetime. The differen

The vast majority of businesses around the world have "assets". It is a universal practice to depreciate those assets over their expected lifetime. The difference between purchase price and resale value is then treated as a normal business expense over the course of those years. So when the servers lifetime is up there are no "load of servers" to worry about. You throw them out (or re-task them) and get new ones. These costs are known and planned for. Dropbox wouldn't do this without running the numbers through vast herds of accountants. Now here is the kicker. Amazon does this too (but slightly less due to economies of scale) and then makes sure their billing covers this.