Paused, not punished

The invoice is sixty days overdue and the emails have gone quiet. The industry's two moves are both bad: tear the site down (nuclear, unrecoverable, hello lawyers) or keep serving it forever (congratulations, you work for free).

There's a third move: one PATCH disables the site's alias. The container is intact underneath: files, database, everything: and idle, it costs you nothing to keep, so patience is free. Their data stays exportable the whole time; you're pausing service, not taking hostages.

The invoice clears. The same PATCH re-enables the alias, and the site is back before their reply lands. No rebuild, no restore, no grudge encoded in infrastructure.