"Isn't already super trivial to get a nodejs app and running" No. Hosting a node server on a bare metal vps is not "trivial". You need to deal with routing, auth, etc and that's even before you get a user on a different continent.

I think its a worthy exercise for new programmers but IMO there is 0 reason to waste the time and mental overhead. Im sure we all have about 6 projects languishing because we dont want to ssh into an instance and remember what the hell is going on in there. Maybe just me.

Sounds like you never used Vercel now AWS. I wouldn’t call AWS “super trivial” nor is Vercel equivalent.