Seeing a few startups' websites fall over says precisely nothing. They could have been on $20 VPSs for all we know - a twenty dollar VPS being something that is

Seeing a few startups' websites fall over says precisely nothing. They could have been on $20 VPSs for all we know - a twenty dollar VPS being something that is possible with OSS. Or maybe not well tuned - since the vast majority of startups use open source software, it's only natural that you will see a disproportionate number of sites using that software fail. Anyway, I'm glad your technology choices are working out for you. However, you must understand that a $2k per box markup would be a stroke of death for many lower-margin startups.