On the contrary, if you just need a box to tinker with sysops stuff and learn, digital ocean is a fantastic solution. Cheap and I've never had a bad experience or anything unreliable.
I can't speak to using it to store lots of not-backed-up files or running a gigantic production server, but for learning about syops it works great, to get back to the purpose of this article.
That's kind of where I'm at right now. Normally all of my side projects are hosted on PAAS (Appfog is my current choice, but we will see since their acquisition).
I really just want to practice setting up and tearing down configurations. I think DO will be a good choice for this.
Was in that exact same spot a couple months ago and did the same thing. I was eyeing DO for a while and one day folded and paid the (really no brainer) $5. I've learned a ton since then and it has been absolutely worth it for me.
I actually transitioned all my apps off any other PAAS platforms (mostly nodejitsu, timed nicely with their 3x price increase) and am now hosting everything I run off a single $5 digital ocean box, which actually is saving me a bit of money, and deploys are a lot smoother. The company I work at, Carrot, is also hosting all of carrot.is on a $5 DO box, including this article, which has had no issues coping with the 600+ people on site at a time that have come with this HN blitz.
I can't speak to using it to store lots of not-backed-up files or running a gigantic production server, but for learning about syops it works great, to get back to the purpose of this article.