I find the opposite story more true: additional complexity in the form of caching early, for a scale that never comes. I've worked on one too many sprawling, distributed systems with too little users to justify it.
I like that. Sounds like a synonym for "Platform Engineering". :-)
I remember being amazed that lambda architecture was considered a kind of reference, when it looked to me more like a workaround.
We like to build IT cathedrals, until we have to run them.