Can someone explain why this is important or interesting?
It may be relevant in the context of their recent and controversial acquisition by Facebook, which many took to mean that Parse's future was at odds, or at least would be taken in questionable directions (e.g. making data available to Facebook.) This move to simple web hosting might mean that Facebook is branching out into infrastructure (like, say, Amazon) with the acquisition of Parse, rather than shutting it down or milking it for it's main product.
Parse uses aws right? Wouldn't the comparison be more apt if made to heroku?
they are leveraging their existing backend as a service customers to try and up sell to a new level of product. important for their financials perhaps. interesting? eye of the beholder I guess.
I would expect the direct financial impact of this launch to be quite small for us. The goal here isn't upselling customers, it's making it easier for our developers to have a strong web presence. This is only the first step, and we have some follow-on projects in this area that should be interesting even to "non-beholders".