I understand that and I am not denying that but it would be now unfair to say that Hetzner belongs in its own category as there are now other alternatives who do compete with Hetzner in its pricing, who also I suppose weren't able to magically buy cheap hardware but I suppose some of them might've lucked out with good deals beforehand and spare-capacity.
Overall I am unsure of how much of the thing was under Hetzner's control itself or not in terms of raising the prices given Ramflation but in deep part I am saddened by it rather than angry on the state of how the whole situation turned out to be, and I wish nothing but good for hetzner as they move past this ramflation and hopefully people are able to give a look at some smaller shops as well which are made of mostly lovely people as well.
I hope that more people look at smaller hosting providers in general who were previously unable to compete at the level of hetzner but now are actually able to do so. I recommend trying them out and talking with them and using it for atleast hobby projects and hopefully even serious projects as I know some hosting providers smaller in scale than Hetzner but are something on which I might feel as comfortable as Hetzner on deploying, if not a bit more because sadly for better or for worse Hetzner is quite strict in some aspects.
How are the smaller hosting providers going to buy cheap hardware?
some already have spare capacity, others have better contracts with their vendors and some can provide DDR3 and specialize in that type of ram and some providers are willing to eat the costs to be better competitive and that the future would be better, some are doing things for ideological reasons as they themselves don't wish to raise prices because they want to provide better for the customers (strange I know but I know of one provider who has said that)
Not everything is good though and some providers are in fact dead-pooling as well and shutting down or raising prices but not to the degree of 3 times. They don't have the leverage that Hetzner does and people would simply migrate but both Buyvm and netcup are notable examples of price increase at the levels of 18-20% for most usecases which was still comparatively high back when they were done but understandable because of ram crisis, which is why my understanding of hetzner's price increase stops being a little understandable.
Ram prices are already declining from its peak and its around 2028 when its mentioned to have a glut. So as easy as it is for me to say but the crisis is comparatively short and there have been other costs involved for hosting providers which is declining (cost of IPv4 is declining as AWS,Google and other giants have stopped hoarding/buying even more IPv4)
It's a tough space for hosting provider but I hope I have shown the how part of how they manage it, its not as easy as it was during the 2020's but it is managable with some smart price increases and other mechanisms or so I have heard. I have just recently bought a few 7$/yr vps's from such shared providers. They don't earn too much from the 7$/yr vps's as much as they earn from the word of mouth (TNAHosting ftw) and thinking of it as (amortizing?) advertisement costs.
Which is why considering all of this and the fact that I was a very massive Hetzner fan back in the day pre price increase, I have felt like the way Hetzner has done things just doesn't feel very Hetzner-y and that there were better ways to manage it and even if not, then there are better shops out there welcoming you, waiting for you to give them a shot as well. I have written another comment detailing some other MASSIVE list of providers as well if this interests ya.