One thing no one has mentioned is the tax implications of the different choices for startups - something which can be as important as the technical side of thin

One thing no one has mentioned is the tax implications of the different choices for startups - something which can be as important as the technical side of things. The OECD model tax convention, which has been adopted by many pairs of countries for their double taxation avoidance agreements (DTAAs) uses the term "permanent establishment" - "a fixed place of business through which the business of the an enterprise is wholly or partly carried on". If a business derives income attributable to a fixed place of business in another country, they will likely need to deal with the tax department of that country. At best, this will mean considerable expenditure (by a bootstrapped startups' standards) on legal compliance, and at worst, could mean considerably more tax is paid. For hosting stages 1-2 in the article, no fixed place can be attributed to the business purchasing the hosting (CPU resources are shared and no CPU fixed CPU is assigned to the business). Disk space may temporarily be associated with a business, but this is under the control of the service provider - it is disk space and not physical disk sectors which are being rented, and the provider is free to move data. However, stages 3-5 mean that a business has a very definite physical location (i.e. place of business) in another country. These types of non-technical issues can often outweigh the technical ones in terms of business priority.