A little time spent learning how to use a server and build an actual scaling infrastructure, and Heroku turns into dust for dumb dorks. Heroku is the MSFT of servers, lock yourself in, and prepare to feel the bind as it gets tighter.
Seriously people, DIY, it isn't hard. Let the "180 websites in 180 days" [1] girl use Heroku, she's giddy to get anything working. Real hackers should not be satisfied with lock-in, ridiculous prices that correlate with the ineptitude of the user-base, potential downtime on top of AWS normal downtime (what Heroku uses in the background.) If you're serious about your business, Heroku makes no sense at all, lest you be a non-technical cofounder, and it makes you feel 'safe.'
It seems you're trying to insult someone who's making an effort to learn some new skills. Not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand.
As to the point of DIY not being hard, getting something working may not be hard. But handling fault tolerance, logging, backup, downtime, etc. is non-trivial. And as mentioned in other comments, this takes time. Even if you're a l33t ub3r h4x0r, that will always be true. For some teams, the DIY investment will make sense, others would rather spend their time building features than dealing with ops.
This conversation isn't geared toward insulting Jennifer, it's an attack on the lameness of using Heroku. I think Heroku users should each get a sticker that says 'I'm a proud black box user'
If you're serious about your business, maybe you want to spent time building and running the business instead of playing sysadmin. Especially when you're a small team. Let's say you pay Heroku $500 a month, which is already a somewhat mature business. On the other hand, you could pay a very cheap sysadmin $50/hr. So you'd get 10 hours of her time. You'd get way more value out of the $500 for Heroku. My time, as a founder, is worth way more than than $100/hr; I'm not going to get my hands dirty in being a sysadmin.
You act like a Heroku gives you a personal sys admin. At best, they keep your servers updated at a laggy pace to maintain major stability rather than security.
Heroku is not a replacement for a sys admin. In fact, you get less with Heroku because you can't even access the systems running your code.
Seriously people, DIY, it isn't hard. Let the "180 websites in 180 days" [1] girl use Heroku, she's giddy to get anything working. Real hackers should not be satisfied with lock-in, ridiculous prices that correlate with the ineptitude of the user-base, potential downtime on top of AWS normal downtime (what Heroku uses in the background.) If you're serious about your business, Heroku makes no sense at all, lest you be a non-technical cofounder, and it makes you feel 'safe.'
[1] http://jenniferdewalt.com/