Eh, I don’t think this is accurate. A website does serve utility, but if you remove art from the discussion, then it becomes soulless, which is not the world we want to live in.

Take HN for example. The first time I visited, I thought it was a terrible, dated design. But over time I grew to appreciate it. I think it is, in fact, quite artistic; it has a style, it makes a statement.

If HN were “modern and user-first” maybe users would have an initial better impression, maybe they would even “convert” better initially. But long-term, it would start to lose its soul.

"- Every email address that exists out in the world is now wrong. - Every piece of marketing material is now incorrect. - All of the SEO is gone."

but it seems to miss even the biggest one, which is that you are effectively locked out of any online business accounts, your bank, your crm, anything that says "we noticed an unusual login, please enter the code we just sent to your email to verify the login."

Wow what a 180 from just a year ago when their blog said, "For companies that handle sensitive information, deploying open-source scheduling software on-premises can offer an extra layer of security. Unlike cloud services controlled by external vendors, on-prem installations let teams maintain full ownership of their infrastructure. " ¹

I just cannot trust a company that does a bait and switch like this.

¹ https://cal.com/blog/open-source-scheduling-empower-your-tea...

Announcement page: http://docs.hetzner.com/de/general/infrastructure-and-availa...

Pricing page: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/