The hidden cost of that, though, is that there is a hidden cost. You say "rent servers" as if it's a silver bullet, but when Dragoneer and FA had a particularly nasty DDOS attack, it ran up $2000 in charges that he was responsible for. Cloudflare and other services can to a degree mitigate DDOSs, as well as programming to allow sites to drop into a "war-footing" to minimize the damage, but if a site is receiving or sending traffic, the meter is running.
The more I look at the history and timing of things, the more I believe the DDoS attacks on FurAffinity were a big part in the IMVU deal that we learned of early this year.
The more I look at the history and timing of things, the more I believe the DDoS attacks on FurAffinity were a big part in the IMVU deal that we learned of early this year.