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> The best example I have is the massive infrastructure many people insist is required for a website. This is my biggest pet peeve, and I think a lot of it (am

by Nathan2055 3y ago

> The best example I have is the massive infrastructure many people insist is required for a website. This is my biggest pet peeve, and I think a lot of it (among supposedly tech-savvy people at least, less technical people are a different story) is caused by people looking at the cost of a random selection of AWS products, often quoting on-demand prices rather than the 40% discount you can get by buying a year of reserved capacity at once, multiplying by 12, and then freaking out. Many cloud products are not good deals, and almost seem designed to make people think running a web service is inaccessible to them. Those products are usually given a healthy markup because you’re paying to avoid certain setup steps or for the ability to scale infinitely large in two clicks. You can still just rent a few cheap servers (or even just one) and, if you set them up properly, you can run a decently sized website off of them no problem.

acedTrex 3y ago
Agreed, a 3 year reserved small ec2 is a few bucks a month. It can run multiple small websites fine. Hosting has never been more accessible, people just get scared by the concept.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
I think what scares a lot of people is the prospect of maintaining a server, configuring it to be secure and keeping it up to speed with security updates. With a cloud product, the only concern becomes keeping your project's dependencies updated which is less intimidating. It's something that's on my mind when I think about launching a site that's intended to draw a significant userbase. Back in the day I'd set up VPS instances with nginx+unicorn+rails and it was relatively smooth, but security has seemingly become so much more critical that I don't know I'd trust myself to get all the biggest holes patched up and more importantly, keep them patched.
- pjc50 3y ago
  Yes. It's the "servers should be cattle not pets" philosophy; then you realize that having one server necessarily makes it a "pet" that demands periodic care and feeding with occasional emergencies that cost money or wake you up at night. Also: people use big services for discovery. If you write a blog, nobody's going to read it unless you get out there on the social media and promote it.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    Discovey as a reason to spend money is another web ad fantasy. The old days discovery was by word of mouth. The trust deficit goes down when one doe t rely on discovery. How important is it to discover a blog post no one is talking about?
    - pjc50 3y ago
      It's important to the writer, surely? Why write if you have no readers? I mean, ultimately that's why we're writing these comments here to each other rather than each on our own web sites?
      - detourdog 3y ago
        The attitude before discovery was if you build it they will come. I see most people pushing discovery/SEO becuase it is complex and people can be convinced it is needed. A writer needing an audience is nothing new. I think it is just as valid to create no matter what comes.

acedTrex 3y ago

Agreed, a 3 year reserved small ec2 is a few bucks a month. It can run multiple small websites fine. Hosting has never been more accessible, people just get scared by the concept.

kitsunesoba 3y ago

I think what scares a lot of people is the prospect of maintaining a server, configuring it to be secure and keeping it up to speed with security updates. With a cloud product, the only concern becomes keeping your project's dependencies updated which is less intimidating. It's something that's on my mind when I think about launching a site that's intended to draw a significant userbase. Back in the day I'd set up VPS instances with nginx+unicorn+rails and it was relatively smooth, but security has seemingly become so much more critical that I don't know I'd trust myself to get all the biggest holes patched up and more importantly, keep them patched.

pjc50 3y ago
Yes. It's the "servers should be cattle not pets" philosophy; then you realize that having one server necessarily makes it a "pet" that demands periodic care and feeding with occasional emergencies that cost money or wake you up at night. Also: people use big services for discovery. If you write a blog, nobody's going to read it unless you get out there on the social media and promote it.
- detourdog 3y ago
  Discovey as a reason to spend money is another web ad fantasy. The old days discovery was by word of mouth. The trust deficit goes down when one doe t rely on discovery. How important is it to discover a blog post no one is talking about?
  - pjc50 3y ago
    It's important to the writer, surely? Why write if you have no readers? I mean, ultimately that's why we're writing these comments here to each other rather than each on our own web sites?
    - detourdog 3y ago
      The attitude before discovery was if you build it they will come. I see most people pushing discovery/SEO becuase it is complex and people can be convinced it is needed. A writer needing an audience is nothing new. I think it is just as valid to create no matter what comes.