It seems quite reasonable when you consider that they used the money to bootstrap their operations: Take some money upfront to buy the servers, and in exchange

It seems quite reasonable when you consider that they used the money to bootstrap their operations: Take some money upfront to buy the servers, and in exchange host a bunch of people for free, covering the operating costs from other income. It was ~6 years in total duration for me (though used on and off). I recognize that buying monthly hosting for an entirety of 6 years is not cheaper, but it's not what I bought. I paid the money upfront, knowing fully well that I would not use it continuously, to have a hassle free way to throw up some small stuff if I need it. Others often seem to have similar use cases (or hosting small websites for local community organizations and similar). I think everybody also recognized that there is a risk the company may go bankrupt, and we're out of hosting, but what's actually happened is that they simply wanted to stop offering the service.