Comment by peterwwillis

Back in the day it was prohibitively expensive to colo your own box just for fun, so you got someone who already had a box to throw you an account in exchange for not hammering it. We used to keep collections of shells across the net. Now they're mainly for nostalgia, camaraderie, and a quick remote terminal if your own system is inaccessible. Them being usually free makes it unnecessary to have your own vps if all you need is a remote place to run commands from.