A developer discusses the challenges of choosing a tech stack for building web apps and highlights the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) as a go-to solution for creating three-tier web applications using JavaScript. The developer also explores the difficulties of deploying applications to the cloud, emphasizing the complexity of selecting cloud providers and resources. DigitalOcean's App Platform emerges as a compelling solution, offering a Heroku-like experience that abstracts infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on their apps. The text provides a detailed guide on deploying a MERN app using DigitalOcean's platform, integrated with Pulumi to automate infrastructure as code. It walks through setting up a grocery list app, configuring its components on DigitalOcean, and using Pulumi to manage deployment, scaling, and teardown processes. The developer encourages experimenting further with Pulumi and DigitalOcean's capabilities, suggesting ways to refine deployment processes and integrate CI/CD workflows.