Something surprising was pointed out to me recently: ports under 1024 are no longer privileged as of macOS 10.14, which means non-root processes can now bind to them. I tested and, in fact, this is true.

This means we no longer need launch_socket_server sitting in between Nginx and port 80. We can allow Nginx to bind to those ports directly. Removing one extra tool in the chain is a net benefit to us, and makes things that much simpler!