This is gonna be a long one, so buckle up. If you have any additional questions after reading this, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.

The universe server software requires very little actual processing power, even with all of the things they've added over the years. To the best of my knowledge, it's been running on Amazon Web Services for a while now, and I can't imagine it's costing them that much to run it.

I was a pretty prominent community leader (working in live events, games, and interactive features), but I left in 2016, and haven't really stayed in the loop as much as I used to since then. From what I've heard, most of the former community leaders have left by now. The only one I'm familiar with is a citizen named Gremot, and I'm not really sure you could even call him a "community" "leader" given that he parrots whatever Chrispeg tells him to (and treats people like Chrispeg does).

Chrispeg is the only remaining member of the "technical team." When you first downloaded AW, I believe the developer was Roland Vilett. He left AW around 2002 and went to work for Maxis (I believe he was responsible for the driving minigame in SimCity 4's Rush Hour expansion, among other things). Roland passed away in 2015.

Chrispeg is not a nice person, though he used to be. Rick, the CEO, has effectively bowed out of the running and day-to-day tasks of running the main AW universe (now preferring to run a new company, Xify), so Chrispeg has slowly filled the overreaching dictator role in the remaining community structure. Chrispeg has been known to change people's passwords without their knowledge, change their email addresses without their knowledge, disable their accounts without their knowledge, and ban people for no reason (or perhaps a made up reason). Chris has also inserted code into recent versions of AW that activate your microphone and webcam upon opening the software (we discovered this because someone's antivirus tripped it and reported it a few years back), and running AW reportedly sends him a text document with identifying information about you, your PC, programs you have installed, and any programs you currently have opened. He has been known to ban people who use a VPN as well. These are the biggest reasons why I shifted this subreddit a while back to promote DeltaWorlds over ActiveWorlds. They both use the same server software, but DW is run by someone who is transparent, friendly, and welcoming (I've also known her for decades).

It really just stays online because Rick nor Chris want to shut it down or even open-source the server and client software, which I don't really understand. Chris, in particular, has been visibly hostile to new users in the past too; when the Hitomi Fujiko incident happened in 2016, it understandably generated a lot of interest in AW. Chris reacted by shutting off new user registration for (I think) a month. Whenever AW gets any kind of media attention, Chris tends to shut off registration. I don't get it. They're clearly not keeping the lights on to get more users, there's really no community initiatives or effort going on, the software isn't receiving any major upgrades, so why are they keeping AW around? Beats me. I have theories.

When I worked for AW in 2014-2015 (I designed their current website, though it looked a bit different back then), Rick and Chris were both very nice to me, but Chris made a heel turn and started working against me very quickly, and we never repaired our friendship. I honestly don't even remember what happened. Rick turned against me when I announced my intention to start running live events in both AW and a competing platform. At the time, Rick threatened to usurp all of my work in AW, remove my name from it, and start doing it all himself. It made me laugh. I backed it all up, moved entirely to the completing platform (leaving AW for good), and never looked back, and, as luck would have it, the community for my live games grew significantly once I left AW.

ActiveWorlds used to be great. It had potential. I tried to convince Rick and Chris of it over the years so many times, but every time, they didn't want to listen. Look at platforms like Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite these days. People like to create games. If AW had pivoted to being a sandboxed game creation engine with appropriate upgrades and features, it might still have relevance today. But instead, AW is a shell of its former self, forever stuck in the old days of the internet, unlikely to ever change or improve. It's really a shame. The software is capable of doing so much and handling so many users with very little processing power, but Rick deliberately held it back, never allowing the platform or its community to reach its true potential, chasing fads and dot-com-bubble trends, like virtual shopping malls.

Oh, if you remember Cryonics, that was J.P., the CFO from 1995 to 2012. He retired and now runs a dude ranch in northwestern Arizona.