I think he is assuming way too many things to be constant, and then using that to justify his thesis of addressing efficiency concerns only just-in-time.<p>The biggest concern I have is that he account nowhere for <i>growth</i> of that new feature, and the increasing hosting costs as a result of that growth. Part of efficiency is how fast is it now; the other half of efficiency is how will the performance <i>change</i> based upon an increased load.<p>Part of the risk of putting out a new feature is you don't entirely know what the uptake will be. It could fall flat, it could grow exponentially within the first week. Or, as this author assumes, it could enjoy a rapid uptake of a certain amount, and then level off just as quickly. I'd argue this last possibility is almost never the observed pattern.<p>The other part of the risk is that, if you go the inefficient route, you may not have the time later on to even build bad hacks within the inefficient code to make it speedier. This is a bad situation to be in, you end up getting screwed by your own unexpected success, and users get pissed because now your site is unreliable.<p>Yes, spending insane amounts of time on efficiencies probably aren't worth it. Yes, you need to do cost-benefit analysis to decide what amount of time is. My point is that there is a lot more to consider than the author gives credit for, and I don't think you are as likely as he believes to reach the same conclusion he did. Cash flow is important, but it is also important to remember that things don't remain flat or grow linearly just because you assert that they do.