I meant cheaper and easier to set up than the alternatives which existed in 2017. I don't think it's unlikely that the space has evolved since then and better alternatives exist today. (either entirely new ones or the ones theymos tried back when he wrote the original post, have evolved and fixed the issues he had during setup etc.)

I don't think price is the biggest issue for Bitcointalk, judging by the generous donations that have been made way back and HODL'ed so far.