Well, I know pretty well what a data center is, and you are wrong.
You don't need data centers to serve Tumblr. Or your gps maps. And for sure not to use a gig jobs app.
You need a server, indeed. That server is basically a computer that needs to be somewhere with a good internet connection. If the site or app has a lot of usage, you may need several of them, rarely more than the lower two figures. That's it.
"the internet we know" doesn't rely on data centers. Data centers, as we know nowadays, basically were invented by Amazon, who started selling them "as a service" maybe 15 years ago. Before that, companies used to, well, have their own servers. Often in their own office buildings. Sometimes in MUCH smaller facilities dedicated to host servers.
But the modern concept of data server? That is needed mostly for data mining and selling processing power as a service, so shitty startups can try to invent the next torment Nexus without needing to hire people who actually know how to work with physical servers nor spending big money on hardware.
But most of the apps and websites you use everyday? Any shitty laptop could very well be used as their server and support a couple of hundred concurrent users without breaking a sweat.
Honestly, they are just needed for the worst parts of the internet.
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