My point is that if "infrastructure as code" is your sole requirement, Kubernetes doesn't seem like the first choice. Adopting Kubernetes is not a small task, but it seems to be the go-to answer for a lot of the HN crowd.
Don't get me wrong: it's a great tool for some things. But IMO, for 80% of projects it's completely overkill.
+1. Infrastructure as code is exactly that, code. For AWS it is Cloudformation template code, Cloudformation service and some CI/CD on top, like jenkins or ansible. Or Terraform for unlucky ones. K8s is container orchestration, like AWS ECS, totally different beast.
On AWS, Cloudformation is far more reliable and lean (less LOC) than TF. No corrupted state issues, all resource properties are supported, parallel (fast) resource creation just for starters. And TF sales pitch about "multi-cloud" is nonsence, resources are too different between different clouds.
I'm not particularly interested in limiting myself to using only the tools that large companies have deemed worthy.
There are plenty of tools out there that can get the job done at the scale that the vast majority of businesses operate in with lower operational and cognitive overhead than Kubernetes.
Don't get me wrong: it's a great tool for some things. But IMO, for 80% of projects it's completely overkill.