This is a funny thing, but still, having a "Function as a Service" is a nice tool to have, regardless of how truly "serverless" it is. Lambda, et al offer the convenience of not having to run your own server, but a FaaS is a great concept regardless of whether you're hosting it yourself or using a cloud provider's version.

I don't see how. I thought the whole use case for FaaS is that you're only paying for the literally milliseconds of compute time you use, and nothing more.

But if you're already paying for the server, what's the point? I suppose you could host a lot more low-volume apps on one server?

This is pretty edge case for who it would be useful for in my opinion?

I have a small droplet on digital ocean I use to host a few small personal projects. $5/month is pretty reasonable and if I don't want to sign up for AWS, this is a fairly beneficial thing to know about.

For people who want to use serverless functionality for cost benefit, it's probably not as helpful.

Serious question, what is the benefit to "serverless functionality" if not financial? The only benefit I'm aware of in micro-/milli-second level billing, and the infrastructure being obfuscated away from you.

Personally, it would be the benefit of not running 10+ express apps on a small server 24/7. I use a small server for personal projects and the traffic they get is minimal, but I also run a few small utilities off the same low-spec server 24/7. This is about the only benefit I see personally for me