[entitycontext]

No, that's a fair interpretation of my comment - after all, the meaning of "cloud optimized" is kind of vague. However, if you compare the new version and previous version and the new version ticks more positive boxes for cloud usage scenarios, then it's not unreasonable to call the new version "cloud optimized".

Beyond the modularization efforts, one could look at the Linux port and dramatic performance improvements in the same light.

[perfectphase]

The Asp.Net core are on record several times saying the primary goal was to be able to cram more websites per host for Azure Websites to reduce costs and to remove the issues of servicing a machine wide framework. Sounds like 'cloud optimized' was a good fit in the early days! :)