It's not "serverless," you are just paying someone else to run more of your stack for you.

In the late 90s to early 2000s we called this "Application Service Providers" or "Managed Hosting."

Really? Serverless platforms seem mostly proprietary. If you use AWS Lambda then you are mostly locked into AWS.

Every technology has some degree of lock-in. Serverless has tradeoffs like anything else. The question is, do the benefits outweigh the costs? I recently did a writeup on this that helped me work through my own thoughts on the issue: https://www.trek10.com/blog/think-faas-podcast-talkin-lock-i...

"lock-in" potential should be measured in how difficult it is to escape a platform/system/framework.

E.g., if I become unhappy with k8s on Google Cloud, it's easy to migrate to aws. If I become unhappy with k8s, it's easy to migrate to Mesos. If I become unhappy with Linux, it's easy to migrate to FreeBSD. If I'm unhappy with Lambda, it's easy to migrate to cloud functions, or a self-hosted FaaS.

Some systems require major rework, or are just otherwise impossible to migrate off (probably by design). Those are the systems to be careful when adapting.

Evaluate the "exit friction", build something useful, and stop worrying.

How does Kubernetes have lock-in? You can run it on any cloud or baremetal.

Those are different levels of lock-in. Vendor lock-in is, in my opinion, worst than software lock-in. Kubernetes is also, open source. Edit: grammar

Kubernetes is the lock-in at that point. You're dependent on that project being maintained, etc.

And yes, I realize that by that definition, any third-party software has lock-in. That's my whole point.

Errr... serverless IS containers at least in the case of AWS.

Kinda weird to be saying “container technology will wipe out ....... container technology!”