> For non-distributable (or at least non-multi-master) DBs, you are often using your most expensive and least distributable resource to do your cheapest and mos

> For non-distributable (or at least non-multi-master) DBs, you are often using your most expensive and least distributable resource to do your cheapest and most distributable work. I see your logic, but I think this is misleading, and often the reason why people do inefficient things. The pattern I see regularly is if the database does more thinking, its planner will diminish the amount of actual work; it will touch fewer rows from disk, and less data will result sent over the network and in fewer round trips. Overall for any extensive report you're likely to be paying significant cost to distribute the work, often more than actually doing the work. Of course, as you say it's subjective. Scaling databases becomes necessary at a point, but it may be because of developers not embracing them; I think this is why NoSQL has gained in popularity.