This isn't technically accurate. Most PHP setups these days load php, keep it loaded, and listen to requests. What you describe is a process by which something

This isn't technically accurate. Most PHP setups these days load php, keep it loaded, and listen to requests. What you describe is a process by which something like apache listens, and on EACH request, loads your php script, interprets it, and they let's the php process end. First, this is a LOT slower, which is fine if you get very very few requests, but you quickly grow out of that. Second, it's not something that is limited to php. This is how most perl site worked back in the day, and you can do the same thing with ruby and python. Last, it really is super cheap to host php, python, ruby, perl, etc sites these days. My hobby site is hosted on app engine, and it pay $0 per month. It's been running for over a year, and gets a fair amount of traffic for a hobby site. Sure, it's subsidized, but I could run the same setup, with a bit more work on my part, on a VPS for $5/month. Yes, php hosting is historically cheaper, but these days that difference is hardly relevant.