So is this a good development? Will this lead to smaller 8chan boards being nice places with good discussion, or merely kill off (well, severely damage) the smaller *chans while yielding inferior replacements? (Why pay to host your own niche board when 8chan'll do it?)

I'm worried this could cause further centralization, damage the uniqueness of smaller imageboards and generally be harmful, but want to be optimistic that something good will happen.

Is there any further detail on how they got a deal with 2ch?