I'm not going to rent a $500 server just to handle the HN traffic spike, sorry. Capacity will be expanded over time, but only after the service pays for itself (either through ads or paid features).
Fyi, it doesn't have to be a $500/mo server permanently either. Depending on where your hosting the backend, you could scale it up temporarily and then scale it back down when things quiet down. $500/mo is approx $16/day which could be well worth it for a day while enjoying an HN-driven bump.