This theory ignores the entire Midwest rust belt where the property pricing squeeze often barely exists and senior level engineers barely cross $100k for salary.
By your logic AWS should also be cheap since it was also built under similar timing.
Hetzner is cheap because they don’t provide the same level of abstractions. They also have competitors in the same price range. They aren’t wildly unique.
Dutchie here married to someone from the Midwest. Can confirm, those houses look really cheap there. It was one of the reasons why we considered living there. But the Netherlands won out over other things (e.g. healthcare).
By your logic AWS should also be cheap since it was also built under similar timing.
Hetzner is cheap because they don’t provide the same level of abstractions. They also have competitors in the same price range. They aren’t wildly unique.