Hm. Well, I agree with your observations. But maybe they're more willing to suggest alternatives because they haven't invested so much into learning an alternat

Hm. Well, I agree with your observations. But maybe they're more willing to suggest alternatives because they haven't invested so much into learning an alternate system? You would expect someone who has, say, spent the last 15 years becoming an expert on DB2 to refrain - even subconciously - from questioning the very fundamentals his career is built on. MySQL users may not be advanced but at least they are unbiased. MySQL is not that bad, no. With proper knowledge it can do a lot, and beyond its limits, capably configured, I am not sure any RDBMS can help. Facebook is not developing Cassandra because they can't afford Oracle.