Scaling starts being a real issue with 10,000+ users. Pretty straight forward to write a server on rust with a single machine capable of handling around 5,000 users, assuming stateless requests.
Maybe you were making a joke and I missed it.
It’s a pretty well documented fact SV startups tend to spend a lot of money on over engineering and making technology decisions based on what’s flash-in-pan popular rather than longevity. Any delta on stability you simply make up with sweat and don’t tell anybody about.
Most startups ideas could be fully implemented in cgi-bin gateway scripts in a few days, but that’s not ‘sexy’. Part of it is a mating dance to VCs: the more hip and bleeding edge you seem, the more competent you appear; despite the inverse is an actual reflection of reality. So my comment is in response to that running joke; in a way, a new unstable database that could disappear off the Internet within six months is a great technology to bass your entire start up on, given the above context.