The full stack isn't under your control on Heroku.
Oh, so you have the ability, time and motivation to rewrite your firmware, operating system, network stack, database and web server and implement it on a CPU you designed yourself?
No? Then the full stack isn't under your control either. Get over it.
That's a different path entirely
You know what? It's not a different path at all. The convenience of Heroku is no different in principle to using closed source hardware.
Look, I'm a freedom-zero[1] type of person. I run Ubuntu - not OSX - and I admin my own servers. BUT the chains of convenience of apt-get are much closer to the chains of convenience of something like Heroku than many would like to admit.
To get more control one should move to AWS. But wait, I don't control the network card on the server with AWS. Hmmm... I know! I'll get a colo. Now I can purchase and build my own machine and have control over the network card. But wait, I don't control the backup power system. Hmmm.... I know! I'll rent a building, get an internet backbone piped into it, buy some generators, and control the backup power system. But wait, I don't control the...
I guess what I'm getting at is, why is this an entirely different path? Why isn't using a service such as Heroku "the path" until you hit it's limitations and need to spend a bit more time going to the next step in the process.
One could easily make the statement of "blah isn't under your control on blah" for anything. Where does it stop?
In practice, the biggest loss-of-control problem I have with Heroku is that it dictates my choice of programming language. Of course, choosing a Linux server also dictates some choices, like making it hard to run Windows-only software. But for me at least, the Linux-apps-only restriction feels less constraining than the Heroku-approved-languages-only restriction. I tend to experiment with new languages semi-frequently, and also have a bunch of code in languages that Heroku doesn't support (mainly Lisp).
Oh, so you have the ability, time and motivation to rewrite your firmware, operating system, network stack, database and web server and implement it on a CPU you designed yourself?
No? Then the full stack isn't under your control either. Get over it.
That's a different path entirely
You know what? It's not a different path at all. The convenience of Heroku is no different in principle to using closed source hardware.
Look, I'm a freedom-zero[1] type of person. I run Ubuntu - not OSX - and I admin my own servers. BUT the chains of convenience of apt-get are much closer to the chains of convenience of something like Heroku than many would like to admit.
[1] http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0