The problem is that the price they're charging is predicated on the customer staying a customer for a minimum period of time. When that predicate fails, because

The problem is that the price they're charging is predicated on the customer staying a customer for a minimum period of time. When that predicate fails, because leaving earlier is too attractive, the pricing model falls down. The obvious crude solution is lock-in, but that doesn't quite cover it, because they're happy with a smaller-than-current fraction of their customers leaving early - and, probably more important, they're happy that customers feel the freedom of being able to leave. Your suggested "un-installation price" is a bad idea: That gives the competition an edge to poach off your customers - you don't want to charge your customers extra to stay with you. Something that might work is to raise the price of new servers, then have it drop automatically after 6 months (or so). After all, new servers are worth more, that's why people want them. Maybe the price could be lowered further automatically every n months, perhaps by a faster rate if you've held the server for a long time. That makes upgrading less attractive without making existing customers feeling shafted.