> In one word: fraud. I've worked at a company similar to Hetzner, and the "add a credit card first" is the single most effective way to weed out 99% of abusers

> In one word: fraud. I've worked at a company similar to Hetzner, and the "add a credit card first" is the single most effective way to weed out 99% of abusers. People that will each up swaths of compute and mine crypto, ruining the service for everyone. Or hosting CSAM material. Or participating in botnets. Or sending spam. All those makes both the company AND the clients suffer. Seconded. Used to work at an MSP that had a customer that did "micro-hosting" on a free tier. Just sign up, put data, run w/ it. There were weeks where I emailed my FBI contact 3-4 times with CSAM links, spam, or evidence of DDoS attacks. Crypto was just getting off the ground then but could totally see that being a thing if the timing were different. Customer was willing to address it quickly and paid even after we gave them the "fuck-off" quote, so we kept em for a while...