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It's not just salaries, though, they technically have no budget. So there's no money to run the servers.

The blocker page is served from S3, which isn't free :)

Maybe they all put their loose change in a pot. Should last for a year or so!

isn't there a free micro instance option? or it was only free for a year?

micro (750 hours/mo) is part of the first 12 months free.