Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you are spending 279 using complicated cloudflare worker/azure function setup, you could have gotten away with $100 month if you have choosen linode/droplets. 32 million requests can be easily served with $50/month heroku node.
I think you massively mis-read the article. $279/mo is what he would have spent. What he actually spends is under $1/mo. Sure a $50/mo Heroku box would do the trick but why spend $49/mo MORE when serverless is cheaper ? What I want to hear is how you argue serverless is “snake oil” when evidence says it’s massively cheaper even at scale. Less than $1/mo to serve 141m requests. How is that snake oil when even you say…
1. You are saving $49 month by spending 250+ hours engineering hours to structure the application which is near impossible to extend/maintain.
2. The $49/month subsidy (free tier) you are getting is temporary and will eventually go away (think about google maps api price change).
3. 50x cost for serverfull solution is not a right number. lets say you have to handle 500M requests per month (around 200 QPS) the 50x becomes .000X.
4. If there is any sudden spike to popularity, you are screwed. you will end up paying several thousand $ per month.