For that matter, a lot of human civilization has been about identifying things that were normal and making them rare. "Normal" infant mortality of 40%, famines, floods, history being lost, etc.

Anyway, when it comes to "this is normal" I think we should take care to distinguish between interpretations of:

1. "This specific case should not have taken certain people by surprise."

2. "This is a manifestation of a broader phenomenon."

3. "This is natural and therefore cannot or should not be solved." [Naturalistic fallacy.]

In the specific case discussed in the article and comments, I'm advocating for another interpretation:

4a. "If a process is unlikely to be needed any time soon, shutting it down and then paying cold-start costs if and when it's needed again, is better than keeping it going and wasting resources better used elsewhere", and

4b. "There's an infinitely long tail of low-probability problems, and you can't possibly afford to maintain advance readiness for any of them".

Also on the overall sentiment:

4c. "Paying a cold-start cost isn't a penalty or sign of bad planning. It's just a cost."