I think one mistake is using the term “monolithic” in comparison to “microservices”. To a whole new generation of programmers (and a fair proportion of older ones also) it has a negative meaning somewhere approaching “a huge and growing mess of smelly unstructured, non-modular code”. It is a negative term invented to compare against the glory that be “microservices”.
I prefer to use the term “Local Modular Application” in lieu of anything better?
To some extent I think "monolith" is actually changing connotation as people realize that microservices are not a silver bullet. For example, Shopify calls their system a "modular monolith":
I prefer to use the term “Local Modular Application” in lieu of anything better?