Small static websites are effectively free (Cloudflare, GCP free tier, etc)..

This has been the case for more than a decade, Heartbleed was probably the one which really created the trend.

I'm certainly not complaining about some selfless guy making a helpful website without expecting anything in return!

Are you asking why do we name things? In a programming forum?

It is annoying (and ironic) because larger companies, that will benefit from this information the most, blocks newly registered domains.