Why do people bring this up so often in 2020? When you can have a $5/month Linode and install anything you need.
I like PHP a lot, but wouldn't want to use / learn it in a constrained environment of an old-school webhost.
because there are lots of people who have other things to do than "bring up anything" on some cheap "roll-your-own" hosting-platform.
... ever considered TCO !?
they just want some problem solved, and don't care much about the current "trends", "buzzwords" or whatever there is in 2020 which may be of interest for "it-nerds" than "getting things done" and move on with their core-business :)
just my 0.02€