Spend money on server and bandwidth? Yes.
Spend $9 on a reputable domain name rather than a domain name you technically “rent” from an unscrupulous registrar that eventually takes back domains and redirects them to adult websites? Thus leading to them getting sued by Facebook and bringing enough attention to Mail for them to take back the domains? Nah.
This is the old Giant Bomb and GameSpot archive that Fandom (who bought both sites) wanted to throw away.
Jeff Gertsmann talks about it in episode 57 of his podcast saying he’s relieved Danny saved it and tells a few stories about how people tried to throw it away in the past.