> Other kinds of apps (like social media or messaging) have very different usage patterns and can't use this kind of structure.
Reddit can’t turn a profit, Signal is in financial peril. Meta runs their own data centers. WhatsApp could handle ~3M open TCP connections per server, running the operation with under 300 servers [1] and serving ~200M users. StackOverflow was running their Q&A platform off of 9 on prem servers as of 2022 [2]. Can you make a profitable business out of the expensive complex machine? That is rare, based on the evidence. If you’re not a business, you’re better off on Hetzner (or some other dedicated server provider) boxes with backups. If you’re down you’re down, you’ll be back up shortly. Downtime is cheaper than five 9s or whatever.
I’m not saying “cloud bad,” I’m saying cloud where it makes sense. And those use cases are the exception, not the rule. If you're not scaling to an event where you can dump these cloud costs on someone else (acquisition event), or pay for them yourself (either donations, profitability, or wealthy benefactor), then it's pointless. It's techno performance art or fancy make work, depending on your perspective.
Reddit can’t turn a profit, Signal is in financial peril. Meta runs their own data centers. WhatsApp could handle ~3M open TCP connections per server, running the operation with under 300 servers [1] and serving ~200M users. StackOverflow was running their Q&A platform off of 9 on prem servers as of 2022 [2]. Can you make a profitable business out of the expensive complex machine? That is rare, based on the evidence. If you’re not a business, you’re better off on Hetzner (or some other dedicated server provider) boxes with backups. If you’re down you’re down, you’ll be back up shortly. Downtime is cheaper than five 9s or whatever.
I’m not saying “cloud bad,” I’m saying cloud where it makes sense. And those use cases are the exception, not the rule. If you're not scaling to an event where you can dump these cloud costs on someone else (acquisition event), or pay for them yourself (either donations, profitability, or wealthy benefactor), then it's pointless. It's techno performance art or fancy make work, depending on your perspective.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33710911
[2] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/stack-overflow-st...