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Vercel Service Markup

service-markup.vercel.app

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Re: Vercel Service Markup

#21

Post by re-thc »

beginnings wrote: post #13
TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think this is the right argument to make. People do this not to avoid setting up nginx and Postgres, they do it to avoid needing to worry about scalability later down the line. Yes, for hobby projects and proofs of concept you can easily get away with a VPS from DigitalOcean or Vultr (are they still around?), but for anything with super variable traffic? Planning to post a link to HackerNews or ProductHunt? Cl…

What percentage of projects ever need that scale? Is it not something crazy like 95% of startups fail? A lot of the successful ones will be in niche categories as well that just don't have scale problems like major social media and tech companies.

Even then most VPS providers offer a load balancer and you can add multiple VPS. It's not so black and white on 1 server vs infinite scaling. There are midpoints.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#22

Post by steve_adams_86 »

dlisboa wrote: post #14
beginnings wrote: post #9

A whole industry has sprung around charging front end developers for basic server management tasks. They will quite literally pay for anything that means they don't have to SSH into Ubuntu server. The irony is they are taking on a ton of overhead with multiple services instead of learning how to set up Nginx and sudo apt install Postgres.

There's a lot more to running your own server than that. I set up a Hetzner VPS just for play one weekend. I forgot all about it and came back a couple days later: it had already been compromised and was being used to mine crypto coin. All because I left something running (related to Docker) which I don't even remember starting. Hardening your servers, ensuring proper port exposure, ensuring upgrades and security pat…

I’ve got a lot of dumb little things living out on the internet deployed this way, and I don’t think I’ve ever been compromised. Maybe you were just especially unlucky?

There are some things I’ve deployed without much care and yet they’re always as I left them.

I’m not saying there’s nothing to worry about. I’m just not sure it’s all that difficult with some rudimentary (but sane) security practices.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#23

Post by radicalriddler »

This is why I'm bear-ish on Next.JS as a framework. Vercel has some super cool features for Next.Js that are easy to integrate into your app, but is that de-incentivizing Next.JS to implement them in an open way?

Vercel is a hyper for-profit and closed platform, is that blocking innovation on Next.JS as an "open-source" framework?

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#24

Post by msy »

Vercel raised $300m+ at the top of the market and paid over the odds to hire a ton of JS ecosystem luminaries. Those investors are going want to see a return, not just an eyewatering wage bill. Anyone building on top of their ecosystem is going to get fleeced, they have no other route to possibly justifing their valuation or ever providing a passable return on that capital. Everyone else should be preparing their plan b for what happens if they impode and Next.js, Turborepo etc development fractures or grinds to a halt.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#25

Post by re-thc »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #22
dlisboa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more to running your own server than that. I set up a Hetzner VPS just for play one weekend. I forgot all about it and came back a couple days later: it had already been compromised and was being used to mine crypto coin. All because I left something running (related to Docker) which I don't even remember starting. Hardening your servers, ensuring proper port exposure, ensuring upgrades and security pat…

I’ve got a lot of dumb little things living out on the internet deployed this way, and I don’t think I’ve ever been compromised. Maybe you were just especially unlucky? There are some things I’ve deployed without much care and yet they’re always as I left them. I’m not saying there’s nothing to worry about. I’m just not sure it’s all that difficult with some rudimentary (but sane) security practices.

It is a common theme. Bots and others scan ports and IP ranges all the time. Looking at server logs I always see random server connections trying to get to things like wp-login.php to look for an exploit.

If you put it out there and don't actively secure it it's bound to get compromised - just a matter of when.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#26

Post by re-thc »

mattwad wrote: post #16
beginnings wrote: post #9

A whole industry has sprung around charging front end developers for basic server management tasks. They will quite literally pay for anything that means they don't have to SSH into Ubuntu server. The irony is they are taking on a ton of overhead with multiple services instead of learning how to set up Nginx and sudo apt install Postgres.

it's great for contractors with small projects where the customer is happy to pay for less maintenance fees. Not sure I would use it for a company I worked for full-time, though.

The bill can cost you more. Often see contractors implementing things like marketing campaigns - short lived websites, yet at $400/TB anything with some attention can cost you a lot more.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#27

Post by CharlesW »

This is really interesting, kudos to the creator! My only note is that Vercel is probably paying less than you and me, in which case the spread is a bit greater than the "vs. retail" comparison.

As I type this the responses are mostly negative, so to balance that I'd like to point out that (1) integration is often undervalued, and (2) nothing prevents developers from using the other services directly, or even creating and managing their own databases, object storage, etc.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#28

Post by re-thc »

seabrookmx wrote: post #19
alberth wrote: post #17

Seems like “vercel” should be renamed “resell”.

lol not sure why you're being downvoted. I'll point out this is nothing new. Heroku being another (maybe dated) example. Fly.io isn't perfect but I have to hand it to them, atleast they self-host and work to differentiate their stack.

I'd argue even Heroku is a lot more reasonable in markup.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#29

Post by gondaloof »

beginnings wrote: post #9

A whole industry has sprung around charging front end developers for basic server management tasks. They will quite literally pay for anything that means they don't have to SSH into Ubuntu server. The irony is they are taking on a ton of overhead with multiple services instead of learning how to set up Nginx and sudo apt install Postgres.

A whole industry has sprung around charging back end developers for basic networking tasks. They will quite literally pay for anything that means they don't have to place a server in their basement. The irony is they are taking on a ton of overhead with multiple services instead of learning how to plug in the Ethernet cable and turn the server on.

Re: Vercel Service Markup

#30

Post by satvikpendem »

paxys wrote: post #15
orliesaurus wrote: post #12

Serious question: do big companies actually use Vercel? I never worked at a big/very big company but I don't see how these prices would scale for them

Next.js is incredibly popular in the industry. Some of the largest companies out there use it. Whether they host on Vercel or not I can't say, but I'm sure that number isn't zero. Of course we are talking more about auxiliary stuff like landing pages, marketing sites, blogs and documentation, not hosting for their core business.

Vercel's revenue was 25.5 million in 2022 (according to Nathan Latka who has pretty reputable figures) on a 2.5 billion dollar valuation [0]. They're hyped but it doesn't seem like any big players actually use them at scale, as it's likely much, much cheaper to host on bare cloud providers like AWS, which Vercel themselves wrap (with Vercel also now wrapping the services included in OP's site).

[0] https://getlatka.com/companies/vercel

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