It's pretty obvious what the concern is, no? Hetzner's process seems to be blocking real people with no malicious intent (myself included) from creating accounts, even when we try to provide proof. Obviously this means we end up using a different provider instead. Though in my experience attempting to do business in Germany, this kind of forbidden-by-default perspective is quite common there, so they probably don't see it as a concern, I guess.

A credit card is “low trust” confirmation of identity. Usually for this kind of services, you also have to submit your ID for verification. Perhaps you’re based in a country where this is not possible so they didn’t ask upfront?

Either way, it’s their process so you’re of course welcome to go elsewhere if you want. I don’t see it as a “bad thing” for companies to require some level of trust.

I'm based in the UK where we all have credit cards. I also did give them my ID - which is NOT typical for other hosting providers, actually, but I'm happy to provide it - but that still didn't satisfy them.

Yes, Germany is an extremely low-trust society masquerading as a high-trust society.

Herzner get flack because they are probably the only German entity that the average HN user has dealings with. Anyone who has had exposure to German bureaucracy will recognise the hostility.

The strange thing is that the same thing is happening in the US. A story of someone’s Google, PayPal, Instagram etc account getting banned for no reason gets posted every day. Customer service means posting on social media and hoping it gets enough traction. Hell, I can’t even buy anything at Walmart online because they cancel every order because of suspicious activity, even though I ordered there before with the same payment method and address. I think a lot of people have a strong sense of entitlement and blame things such as this on the foreignness of the entity (in this case Hetzner).