[sparkling]

Doubt it. Hetzners smallest machine is something like $4/month, additional IPv4 addresses come with extra cost. They have quite tight service quotas, and this 2M additional IPs would be almost their entire IPv4 pool.

[FinnKuhn]

Hetzner was just an example, because they are a well known. Interestingly a similar sudden increase of German Tor users also happend in 2017: https://www.chip.de/news/Raetselhafter-Nutzeranstieg-Zahl-de...

Hetzner (and other German entities) seem to operate quite a few relays though: https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#aggregate/as not sure if this might have something to do with it...

[jacooper]

They don't operate the relays themselves, rather users install relays on hetzner vpses/servers.

[moooo99]

I don’t know about the details, but I know Hetzner has quite a backstory with their servers being abused by spammers. I don’t know how the state is today, but maybe it’s not as unlikely as it seems?

[withinboredom]

If they even think you are spamming, you get banned. Pretty much closed to individuals (according to Reddit, if they don’t even like the way your ID looks, you’re banned) while businesses get more leeway to do things.