How are the "requests per second" measured? (I assume that something like `ab` is used, but I'm wondering if it run on the same machine or from an external machine ...)
HN loves benchmark porn. Throw some dramatic charts up, show approximately zilch methodological control, voila: front page.
(Complete with sarky comments like this one.)
My personal question is: are DigitalOcean making a profit?
Let's suppose for a moment that I actually wanted to do a performance comparison for my own purposes (which means I actually care about the actual results). How would I do it right?
Yes. If you do the math they actually do break even and manage to squeeze some profit.