Something is always the problem. With a VPS, you don’t usually have to worry about DO being a problem. You pay your bills, your server stays up. Maybe if you don’t update you might get hacked, but killed by provider update is not a failure mode of VPSs. I use k3s on bare metal. I’ve tried to run k8s so many times before and they all failed at some point in ways that didn’t inspire confidence. Mostly etcd became a mess, so this time I’m running k3s with a Postgres datastore that I can actually look at, reason about, backup and independently make HA, with a plus of not having to run arcane commands to manage the cluster that runs my cluster.
I once tried nomad because it claimed to be simpler. I stopped when I realized I’d also have to use multiple clusters to run a cluster (nomad+consul).
I use k3s because I build apps for multiple clients and I like the flexibility that it gives me in running servers like cattle.
My point is that these orchestrators need to start decreasing the enormous amount of risk they add to any project.