I guess the point I was trying to make is that all that "extra" stuff isn't really much extra work at all and the same magic deploy tools could be just as easy on a VPS/bare-metal, but aren't because of $$profit$$ making it better that they don't make it super-easy to deploy on VPS/bare-metal.

I can make a script to do it all for me (and have in the past), but it's a bit of work.

That's really why the title of the article is apt being "the Amazon Premium", and not "the Amazon Rip-off".