[eksith]

We can't afford hourly rates of $120 and RAM most definitely doesn't just cost $20 when you factor in the inevitable new VM/machine. RAM is critical for maintaining concurrent connections plus there are times you need to keep large datasets in memory to avoid hitting the database.

This casual disregard for resources would explain why a lot of startups run into infrastructure issues so quickly and settle on terrible solutions (or outright snake oil) to mitigate problems that shouldn't exist in the first place.

People need to start realizing that The Cloud is only a metaphor. Hardware isn't intangible and neither is their cost.

Servers don't grow on trees; they live on a rack and grow on electricity and NAND.