> You certainly could build server applications that way. But it feels like there's something fundamental to how service businesses operate that pushes away from that kind of hyperoptimized model.
That "fundamental" thing is the cultural expectation that SaaS offerings constantly grow in features, rather than in reliability or performance. As your example from the world of video games demonstrates, there is no industry-wide belief that things must be able to do ever-more, forever. It's really mostly SaaS and desktop software that has this weird and unreasonable culture around it. That's why your word processor can now send emails, and your email provider now does translations as well.
That "fundamental" thing is the cultural expectation that SaaS offerings constantly grow in features, rather than in reliability or performance. As your example from the world of video games demonstrates, there is no industry-wide belief that things must be able to do ever-more, forever. It's really mostly SaaS and desktop software that has this weird and unreasonable culture around it. That's why your word processor can now send emails, and your email provider now does translations as well.