At my day job, we receive a real money for processing each transaction, which adds maybe 1kb of information to the database. This makes the scaling story laugha

At my day job, we receive a real money for processing each transaction, which adds maybe 1kb of information to the database. This makes the scaling story laughably easy. By the time we're maxing out the biggest database you can buy, it's IPO time. For most of my life I worked in games, which is almost the exact opposite problem. Tiny CPMs, insane traffic. Multiple providers of cheap bandwidth have gone bankrupt and left me high and dry; but the savings were worth it, and I continued to chase those deals. It was the right call. Engineers love to design architecture that (they believe/hope/pray) will scale to Uber sizes. But if you're not having a conversation with the business as to whether that's a sensible goal, it's negligence bordering on fraud. You aren't being paid to needlessly teach yourself cool new technology to solve imaginary problems. Which is all to say: ignore parent's advice at your peril.