Believe it or not, hosting costs money. It's just that you're not the customer at GitLab and GitHub with free accounts, but simply lure to bring in paid customers. This means that your interests is not what drives company decisions.

Sourcehut as a company is designed to make the relationship between you and the company clear: You are the paying customer, and funding the services. There is no secret agenda or external investor whose interests they must please. Plus, it's the most transparent company I know of.

While you could just ask your questions in #sr.ht, you can also read the financial report (https://sourcehut.org/blog/2020-01-13-sourcehut-q4-2019-fina...) and see what colos they are paying for. At the time, hosting was in San Fransisco and Philadelphia. You can also use their Prometheus instance to check how things are running if you'd like (https://metrics.sr.ht/graph). Both guys in the company's face can be seen and profile read here (https://sourcehut.org/consultancy/).

I don't think your questions can be answered to the same degree from other hosting providers, despite imprints.

That is entirely your choice. In.my experience, there are many companies out there that provide good services, but don't publish any address on their website. I am sure that you could get one if you ask nicely. It just doesn't make sense to post that info publicly in every case.