> The general setup for the largest players in that space was haproxy in front of nginx in front of several PHP servers in front of a MySQL database that had one primary r/w with one read only replica.
You'd be surprised that the most stable setups today are run this way. The problem is that this way it's hard to attract investors; they'll assume you are running on old or outdated tech. Everything should be serverless, agentic and, at least on paper, hyperscalable, because that sells further.
> Today at AWS, it is easily possible for people to spend a multiple of the cost of that hardware setup every month for far less compute power and storage.
That is actually the goal of hyperscalers: they are charging you premium for way inferior results. Also, the article stated a very cold truth: "every engineer wants a fashionable CV that will help her get the next job" and you won't definitely get a job if you said: "I moved everything from AWS and put it behind haproxy on one bare-metal box for $100/mo infra bill".
> The problem is that this way it's hard to attract investors; they'll assume you are running on old or outdated tech. Everything should be serverless, agentic and, at least on paper, hyperscalable, because that sells further.
Many do. For most it's not the biggest concern (that would be quite weird). AFAIK it's mostly about reducing risk (avoiding complete garbage/duck taped setups)
Source: I know a person who does tech DD for investors, and I've also been asked this question in DD processes.
You'd be surprised that the most stable setups today are run this way. The problem is that this way it's hard to attract investors; they'll assume you are running on old or outdated tech. Everything should be serverless, agentic and, at least on paper, hyperscalable, because that sells further.
> Today at AWS, it is easily possible for people to spend a multiple of the cost of that hardware setup every month for far less compute power and storage.
That is actually the goal of hyperscalers: they are charging you premium for way inferior results. Also, the article stated a very cold truth: "every engineer wants a fashionable CV that will help her get the next job" and you won't definitely get a job if you said: "I moved everything from AWS and put it behind haproxy on one bare-metal box for $100/mo infra bill".