Those are not universal terms, and are actually defined in the contract which you seem to have not read. Grace periods, minimum commitments, subscription lengths, and/or post-paid terms are all common.

Ironically there are far more complaints about cloud providers shutting down entire business operations because of a late payment here on HN. Perhaps you should consider this more thoroughly instead of escalating a single unfortunate anecdote into a strawman argument against how business billing works.

Have you ever read your contracts? Maybe it would be time to do so now, before you run into troubles with collectors.

Of course. I just opened up a contract I signed with a legal firm. It says lack of payment ends the contract.

Why can't everything be simple and easy? Maybe somebody needs to pass a law to make it so.