Ok I could see this except for one thing I found out recently. "Long-existing hosting companies" have traded hands a bunch of times. Wild West Domains, Tucows, etc are like 6 different owners removed from the founders at this point. Sometimes the founders are kept on, but more as a figurehead who isn't supposed to ask detailed questions about what does and doesn't go on.

One of the better documented cases of hosting companies being a proxy for intelligence wars was the 2017 lawsuit Namecheap filed against eNom and Tucows. Long story short, Namecheap was supposed to be US intelligence, and eNom and Tucows were unknown/unnamed other intelligence group/agency [1].

[1] - https://domainnamewire.com/2017/09/01/namecheap-sues-enom-tu...