<i>couldn&#x27;t imagine learning C without learning x86</i><p>One difference: C-&gt;x86 is a static translation layer.  Other network&#x2F;system things dynamically change out from under your &quot;designed&quot; system and alter threat&#x2F;security&#x2F;disaster&#x2F;reliability&#x2F;consistency models in a potentially unpredictable combinational fashion.<p>Saying &quot;cloud abstraction&quot; or &quot;I trust this API and don&#x27;t care how it works&quot; is basically committing every <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fallacies_of_distributed_computing" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...</a> and just saying &quot;X can&#x27;t break because we use provider Y who guarantees they can violate the laws of physics for us!&quot;