People always criticize MySQL, then when asked what is the problem, they always mention the same thing about column length, which is just a default that can easily be changed and it's not even the default anymore for years.
That’s the easiest thing to mention but it’s far from the only one I’ve encountered from using MySQL since the late 90s. The reason things like this keep getting mentioned is that they keep breaking databases: it’s like trying to excuse all of the salmonella cases at a restaurant which serves undercooked chicken because you can remember to order it fully cooked.
In 1998, MySQL was appealing because it was very fast on simple queries and didn’t cost a further. Until the early 2010s it had a better replication story than Postgres. But by now it’s often slower than Postgres on my apps, feature poor, and you don’t notice how many limitations you’ve internalized until you realize it’s been years since you had to repair or kludge around a MySQL quirk.
In 1998, MySQL was appealing because it was very fast on simple queries and didn’t cost a further. Until the early 2010s it had a better replication story than Postgres. But by now it’s often slower than Postgres on my apps, feature poor, and you don’t notice how many limitations you’ve internalized until you realize it’s been years since you had to repair or kludge around a MySQL quirk.