Ironically, this article sets up a strawman of people who claim performance NEVER matters, and then rants long windedly in a tone suggesting it always matters.

My general principle: don’t give uni-directional advice when optimizing a u-shaped loss function.

I usually find that those failing to advocate the nuanced position “you can spend too much AND too little time on perf, here is how to prioritize” are not adding useful information to the conversation.

The truth is, most startups don’t need to worry much about perf. It’s a feature that your customers don’t usually ask for at first. At the other end of the scale, giant companies invest huge sums in taming performance. And your own situation will have more parameters than just that one simplified spectrum.

Measure ROI honestly, and prioritize accordingly!