When will we get a server that never shuts down?

Harry

All services cost SOMETHING but it might not be the way you think. For every server, there is a bunch of things to consider. From a hardware perspective, it has to be housed somewhere, it needs to be cooled, powered, connected and protected from thieves and natural disasters. Then as parts fail they need to be replaced, the facility needs to be upgraded or maintained and you need to pay people for physical security and any associated labor with these parts - all of which cost money. From a logistics side, in order to maintain this 99%+ uptime (plus a few 9's if you are a gamer) these servers need to be duplicated all over the world providing failovers and an acceptable level of latency for enjoyment. So now it's not just one building it's serveral buildings the same needs. Depending on the application, there might be the requirement for 10 servers per building and the software needed for each needs to be monitored and maintained which again requires people, then you'll need a support team to manage everyone complaining about your service and fixing whatever they can fix and the costs just keep piling up. With all of that said, networks which will last 50 years are not those provided by game companies, but ones which are running on distributed systems like the Tor network. Distributed computing networks are the only way to be sure that networks stay around for a long time. Obviously, this comes with its tradeoffs and drawbacks but that's not what you asked.