This is very sensible but I think is missing one key insight. Very often side projects are ridiculous things that serve very little actual utility but we build them because we think it’s cool. If, for example, I want to writing a reminders app for my groceries that uses a cluster of 8 machines because it’s silly and I want it, that’s what I’m gonna do.

But if you’re building your side project just to serve a purpose and you’re trying to be as efficient as possible then yes, absolutely this advice is incredibly important.