They only had 150 active users (despite 1000 signups), so choosing not to pay for the offering makes sense. I have the utmost respect for CERN as an institution — I want to make that clear. What I don’t love, however, is this trend that seems to be using a PR offensive of “price shaming” whenever contract or license terms change. I understand CERN is publicly funded and that it doesn’t have an unlimited budget. But I…
CERN is very public about its procurements and does cross marketing agreements with many vendors. That’s well known and Facebook probably sought out CERN as a customer for this reason. When those sorts of things are done, the end of the agreement is often publicized as well, as there’s an implied endorsement.