The open source "big data" infrastructure projects such as Cassandra, Kafka, and Hadoop were initially designed to solve unique challenges faced by large companies, but their adoption by smaller startups has proven to be complicated. The issue lies in the fact that these open source systems were not designed for cloud environments, leading to difficulties in scaling and operating them. As a result, vendors have created new monetization strategies, such as selling tooling, automation, and support, which can lead to increased costs for users. To address this problem, infrastructure companies are now developing purpose-built infrastructure from the ground up, designed specifically for cloud environments and real-world use cases. This approach aims to provide resilient, transparent, and easy-to-manage systems that take advantage of cloud primitives. One such product, WarpStream, is a BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) solution that has been designed with this vision in mind, offering a cost-effective and easiest-to-operate Kafka implementation.