This is typical of Hetzner, if a product SKU is losing money they very quickly make changes, even going as far as to discontinue the product entirely (eg. GPU servers). They definitely don't seem to be a fan of loss leaders.
I'm guessing somehow the traffic usage patterns of their USA customers was very different to their EU counterparts, or the cost of expanding network capacity was a lot higher than anticipated.
It's a bit of a shock for sure but it seems this model is a big part of how they can maintain their slim margins.
I have no complaints at all about this model. They work out the cost of providing a service, then they charge that cost plus a markup. They keep doing things that make them money. They stop doing things that don't make them money.
It seems like a straightforward way to run a business.
I have one big complaint and one little one. The big complaint is that they didn't even give one business day's notice, and the little complaint is that they raised prices at the same time they cut what they were offering by 20x, instead of doing one at a time.
Yep they're the technology equivalent of a discount supermarket. Everything is commoditized to the extreme.
Breath of fresh air in the modern cloud era tbh.
To be fair, given how cheap a lot of Hetzners products (especially Server Auction, my beloved) are compared to the competition, not wanting to have loss leaders seems reasonable to me