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I don’t understand some of the comments quibbling over how this person has a “bloated” stack because it costs more than whatever irrationally frugal setup they’

I don’t understand some of the comments quibbling over how this person has a “bloated” stack because it costs more than whatever irrationally frugal setup they’ve created for an app that does X specific thing. Here’s a bigger point: If you’ve got 55,000 monthly active users, and $171 per month doesn’t feel like a rounding error to you, then what you made isn’t actually valuable. Spending any amount of hours to reduce that already small number is a giant waste of time for anybody who has that level of traction.

benhurmarcel 6y ago
You're assuming that the goal is to make something valuable. There are forums with more traffic than this, which don't make money. They're hobby projects.
- golergka 6y ago
  Making something valuable is not the same as making money. May be you just want to feel that you're doing something good for the community. However, money is the universal way to measure value. And if you think that you create an enormous value for the community, and it's something that is important to you personally, paying a few hundred bucks a month for it should be a no-brainer.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    You mean like how repairing roads should be a no brainer, but no-one wants to pay for it?
    - golergka 6y ago
      Even here in Russia, which is famous for its awful roads, there's plenty of private roads, both closed to public, and operated for-profit with toll booths that are in great condition. Tragedy of the commons doesn't happen when things actually belong to someone.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        If I had a penny for every time people write blanket statements of this nature, id be a wealthy man. The list of privatised institutions that perform worse than their publically owned equivalents nations is very long. Passenger rail in US and UK is privately owned and terrible compared to French and Spanish. US broadband is quite poor. US healthcare is much worse value. Private prisons - I dont even know what they were thinking. One must carefully access if market-based solution for a given problem is suitable, or if the potential for abuse and natural monopoly just too great.
        valuearb 6y ago
        Amtrak is owned by the US government. US broadband is run by local monopolies established by government action. US Healthcare is heavily regulated, and grew massively expensive only after regulations were added, and preconditions were excluded. All US prisons have problems. You have any real examples?
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        > Amtrak is owned by the US government. Irrelevant. The actual railroads are private, and Amtrak gets shafted. Look at the state of US passenger railways, and compare them to trains in France or Spain. All countries with successful passenger rail have them public. You will find find same pattern for all examples given.
        valuearb 6y ago
        So your only example of the ills of privatization, is a company that wasn’t ever really privatized?
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I can't help you if you intentionally misconstrue everything I write. If you wish to continue believing that privatisation can never have negative results, please do. But even a casual reading of history or economics will demonstrate that's wrong.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      People do volunteer time and materials for guerilla road repair.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
> If you’ve got 55,000 monthly active users, and $171 per month doesn’t feel like a rounding error to you, then what you made isn’t actually valuable. You heard it boys, unplug those DNS servers, delete 4chan, teardown XKCD, they are worthless!
mattmanser 6y ago
This is the opening line of the article: How much does running a webapp in production actually cost? Maybe more than you think. So they seem to be trying to "educate" people, when they are wrong and basically giving away a lot of money to Amazon and DO. And that's why everyone's chiming in with "lots of unnecessary YAGNI crap you got running there!".

benhurmarcel 6y ago

You're assuming that the goal is to make something valuable. There are forums with more traffic than this, which don't make money. They're hobby projects.

golergka 6y ago
Making something valuable is not the same as making money. May be you just want to feel that you're doing something good for the community. However, money is the universal way to measure value. And if you think that you create an enormous value for the community, and it's something that is important to you personally, paying a few hundred bucks a month for it should be a no-brainer.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  You mean like how repairing roads should be a no brainer, but no-one wants to pay for it?
  - golergka 6y ago
    Even here in Russia, which is famous for its awful roads, there's plenty of private roads, both closed to public, and operated for-profit with toll booths that are in great condition. Tragedy of the commons doesn't happen when things actually belong to someone.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      If I had a penny for every time people write blanket statements of this nature, id be a wealthy man. The list of privatised institutions that perform worse than their publically owned equivalents nations is very long. Passenger rail in US and UK is privately owned and terrible compared to French and Spanish. US broadband is quite poor. US healthcare is much worse value. Private prisons - I dont even know what they were thinking. One must carefully access if market-based solution for a given problem is suitable, or if the potential for abuse and natural monopoly just too great.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        Amtrak is owned by the US government. US broadband is run by local monopolies established by government action. US Healthcare is heavily regulated, and grew massively expensive only after regulations were added, and preconditions were excluded. All US prisons have problems. You have any real examples?
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        > Amtrak is owned by the US government. Irrelevant. The actual railroads are private, and Amtrak gets shafted. Look at the state of US passenger railways, and compare them to trains in France or Spain. All countries with successful passenger rail have them public. You will find find same pattern for all examples given.
        valuearb 6y ago
        So your only example of the ills of privatization, is a company that wasn’t ever really privatized?
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I can't help you if you intentionally misconstrue everything I write. If you wish to continue believing that privatisation can never have negative results, please do. But even a casual reading of history or economics will demonstrate that's wrong.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    People do volunteer time and materials for guerilla road repair.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

> If you’ve got 55,000 monthly active users, and $171 per month doesn’t feel like a rounding error to you, then what you made isn’t actually valuable. You heard it boys, unplug those DNS servers, delete 4chan, teardown XKCD, they are worthless!

mattmanser 6y ago

This is the opening line of the article: How much does running a webapp in production actually cost? Maybe more than you think. So they seem to be trying to "educate" people, when they are wrong and basically giving away a lot of money to Amazon and DO. And that's why everyone's chiming in with "lots of unnecessary YAGNI crap you got running there!".