Yes, "high latency" was referring to the latency. A CDN for static assets doesn't mitigate the fact that the initial request, and everything dynamic is on the wrong side of the planet for most startups' users.
> Any links to back it up?
Hetzner.de. They list the hardware in the boxes. It's desktop processors, desktop motherboards, desktop hard drives and non-ECC RAM in all the cheap server lines.
I think you're over blowing the latency problem. European users interact with US hosted startups all day long and it's not like you hear us complaining.
Re: hardware.
The choice is nice to have and their EX6 and up packages are "proper" server grade (as in Xeon and ECC). EX6 machines start at EUR69 which is fantastic if you ask me.
Edit: as for rudeness - chalk it up more to a disagreement over what constitutes "desktop-grade hardware" (and your omission of their higher level hardware offerings)
As for desktop-grade hardware - I haven't seen this mentioned by anyone else. Any links to back it up?
If that's true (and I doubt it is), it's avoidable if you use their extremely well priced colo option (which is what I'm going for).