For my use case, I upload a bunch of HTML files via SFTP, and it just keeps working. I don't have to deal with the server software, someone who can dedicate a lot more time does that for me for a nominal cost (because keeping the server for 10000 people updated is only marginally more difficult than me keeping my own server updated).
I pay the same or less than I'd pay for a small server, and someone who provides the benefit of a managed platform gets some profit for the value (hassle free website) they created. In exchange, I save an hour or two of fiddling with the server per year, which makes this a great deal. You're not paying for infrastructure, you're paying for the "managed" part of a managed service.
Could I just use a storage bucket? Probably. But I'd have to figure out how to make Let's Encrypt work with that, and if someone decides they hate me and downloads my site with a million bots several times per second, I'm getting a bill that costs me more than a lifetime of shared hosting.
If I were to use PHP and MySQL... they'd probably still update it more diligently than I would after a year when I get busy with other things.
That's probably worth a try for me. For e.g. some small nonprofit, they probably would be happy to pay $24/year more and have everything hosted at the same provider that handles their domain registration.
Depends on your use case.
For my use case, I upload a bunch of HTML files via SFTP, and it just keeps working. I don't have to deal with the server software, someone who can dedicate a lot more time does that for me for a nominal cost (because keeping the server for 10000 people updated is only marginally more difficult than me keeping my own server updated).
I pay the same or less than I'd pay for a small server, and someone who provides the benefit of a managed platform gets some profit for the value (hassle free website) they created. In exchange, I save an hour or two of fiddling with the server per year, which makes this a great deal. You're not paying for infrastructure, you're paying for the "managed" part of a managed service.
Could I just use a storage bucket? Probably. But I'd have to figure out how to make Let's Encrypt work with that, and if someone decides they hate me and downloads my site with a million bots several times per second, I'm getting a bill that costs me more than a lifetime of shared hosting.
If I were to use PHP and MySQL... they'd probably still update it more diligently than I would after a year when I get busy with other things.