Serverless is a Scam

2026-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

"Wow," somebody thought, "setting up web infrastructure certainly is inconvenient!" They said, "what if people could just push their common, privileged web code from anywhere and automatically distribute it to all corners of the internet with constant uptime?"

YEAH FAT FUCKING CHANCE.

Let's talk convenience: why is deploying serverless by far the slowest part of my company's continuous integration process? It's not because our builds are slow. Our builds take like 30 fucking seconds. It's because Cloudflare and Firebase barely have their shit together.

Let's talk privileged: Cloudflare is the NSA's wet dream. No literally. It's a fucking CIA operation to intercept all web traffic that would otherwise be in TLS and track everyone using your "convenient" web app.

Junk fucking code. Absolutely garbage. Throw it in an incinerator.

Why do I have to wait ten fucking minutes for two lines of code changes to be deployed and available on our preview infra? It's because "serverless" is fucking stupid.

Whoever invented serverless was so busy trying to make the future that they forgot that it is the future and we have hardware so damn good that we now have to spend our time optimizing their garbage software for them. We live in 20 fucking 26. If there isn't a fucking server, where are my 10MB of bundled Ecmascript going to?

I self-host^{1</a> a $35 ARM-based server that will boot, pull the action context,
compile our server, and start running it faster than it takes to just to run
the deploy step our "serverless" infra.}

When did software development decide that having access to the hardware running their code was bad, actually? Was it around the same time they decided that brand images should have as few Bezier paths in logos as possible?2</a>

^{1
For those who don't know what "self-hosting" means, it's where you buy
your own hardware and run things on it as opposed to paying Google to make
you believe that 200 status codes come from the volunteer labor from elves in
the North Pole when they're not developing Santa's spyware that lets him know
which list you're on.
</div>
^{2
These are rhetorical questions. I have answers to these. No, they're not
"hurr de hurr political correctness."
</div>}}

Smash Your Phone With A Hammer

2026-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Cameras everywhere, and almost all of them are voluntary. You think privacy is pointless? Smash your smartphone with a hammer and you've regained 90% of it back.1</a> If you own a hammer, you have no excuse.

But Soup...</th>	Answer</th></tr></thead>
...how will I check my email?</td>	Computer.</td></tr>
...how will I check my Twitter account?</td>	Delete your Twitter account.</td></tr>
...how will I make and receive phone calls?</td>	Landline or dumb phone.</td></tr>
...what if I want</em> the government to spy on me?</td>	Move to China.</td></tr> </tbody></table> ^{1</sup> Or recycle it, if you're climate-conscious.</p> </div> Hi, Linear 2026-01-22T00:00:00+00:00 Hi, Linear. I see your update notification: "Reload the page to get the latest update." No, I won't</em> reload the app. I've already reloaded it, very politely I might add, three times today already.</p> We have package managers for a reason. We even have app stores for a reason. If you want me to update your app so bad, why don't you try making real</em> software instead of this browser-based garbage? I'll update your app when I fucking choose to.</p> You know, back in my day, we had things called "standards" for such basic things as app updates. Software shouldn't make you miss the Soviet Union.</strong> Linear doesn't even give version numbers for its updates</a>. I bet if it did, the internal Semver patch numbers would be higher than my cholesterol count.</p> Why are there so many goddamn updates anyways? Linear is just a glorified issue tracker that uses third-party services for all the actually important shit like hosting code, managing PRs, and running CI.</p> Linear Release v2.5.2544:</p> Increased RAM usage from 2GB to 3GB1</a></sup></li> Shrunk the notification panel by 0.1em after three years of A/B testing</li> Fixed bug where UBlock Origin disables the embedded Bitcoin miner</del> crucial telemetry plugins</li> Upgraded minimum user specs from two forehead wrinkles to three</li> </ul> </blockquote> The only legitimate explanation I can come up with for why Linear needs to update so damn often is that because if it stopped receiving updates for how to interact with GitHub's proprietary, third-party API, it would stop working completely after like three months. Of course, GitHub is more responsible than to design so brittle of an API, so I find it easier to much believe that Linear's codebase is held together by duct tape.</p> How many updates do you need to get a fucking Kanban board to work?</p> Garbage. Junk. Worthless.2</a></sup></p> ^{1</sup> No joke, the primary reason I have a dedicated computer for my work is because my laptop, my fucking gaming laptop</em>, runs out of fucking memory</em> with more than two browser tabs open on Linear. Never, ever</em> fucking believe a webdev when they say "it runs everywhere."</p> </div> ^{2</sup> "But Soup, it's so useful!" I don't fucking care, find or make a better tool.</strong></p> </div>}} I'm Not A "Power User" 2026-01-22T00:00:00+00:00 If I am considered a power user of a specific tool, if I stand out for demanding any reasonable degree of knowledge or authority in how any tool operates, that tool is not reasonable.</p> You know what tool is</em> reasonable about its power users? OpenBSD. All OpenBSD users are power users. This isn't because OpenBSD users are more resourceful, smarter, and prettier than users of other OSes (even though they are). it's because OpenBSD actually puts in the care to properly cultivate an environment where users are encouraged to learn how the damn thing works.</p> If you don't know how to use a tool, just read its man(1)</code></a> page and you will know everything you need to know. No undocumented features, no out-of-date docs, and no confusion. You don't even need Internet access.</p> Need to know how the build processes differ from other OSes? Just read one of many ports mirrors (here</a>'s the one on GitHub). Each port's build instructions is 100 lines of Makefile at most.</p> Does it run Doom? Gee, I hope so. Does it run Linux? If you're lucky. Does it run OpenBSD? You bet your Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture</a> it does. Why? Because OpenBSD simply gives a shit. Why do we live in a world that considers running a decades-old piece of software on hardware that is barely old enough to drink a feat of master hackery?</p> Computers don't need a fucking caste system.</p> To the McDonald's manager who snitched on Luigi Mangione 2026-01-22T00:00:00+00:00 Step on a Lego.</p>}

Soup For My Family

Serverless is a Scam

Smash Your Phone With A Hammer

Hi, Linear

I'm Not A "Power User"

To the McDonald's manager who snitched on Luigi Mangione