Back when we only had shared hosting or bare metal there where some pretty good CGI hosters. So a better comparision is compact fluorescent lamp: incandescent light bulb with a new name, CFL are clumsy and expensive for many things but a cheap and easy way to use less energy. I'm waiting for the LED version.

Would those hosters scale up to serve arbitrary amounts of traffic? Would they automatically replace hosts that failed? Could they seamlessly integrate with systems that can store and query unlimited amounts of data? Did they have a system like API Gateway to put your CGI scripts behind? Did they have deployment systems that would set up all of the above and more with a single command, like Serverless? Also are you aware that Lambda is exceedingly cheap?

Weak argument from analogy given the (lacking) degree of relevant similarity. See: On Analogy, A System of Logic by John Stuart Mill for a thorough analysis of analogical reasoning:

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/system_of_...

Seems to me like they are both dismissive statements about a technology that provides the same thing in a new improved way. But more importantly, linking to a book of logic is an especially poor form of argument.

considering how tenuous the original comment claiming cloud functions are just basic evolution of cgi scripting I think providing similarly poor analogies is quite apt.