The complexity is what gets you. One of AWS's favorite situations is

1) Senior engineer starts on AWS

2) Senior engineer leaves because our industry does not value longevity or loyalty at all whatsoever (not saying it should, just observing that it doesn't)

3) New engineer comes in and panics

4) Ends up using a "managed service" to relieve the panic

5) New engineer leaves

6) Second new engineer comes in and not only panics but outright needs help

7) Paired with some "certified AWS partner" who claims to help "reduce cost" but who actually gets a kickback from the extra spend they induce (usually 10% if I'm not mistaken)

Calling it it ransomware is obviously hyperbolic but there are definitely some parallels one could draw

On top of it all, AWS pricing is about to massively go up due to the RAM price increase. There's no way it can't since AWS is over half of Amazon's profit while only around 15% of its revenue.

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coliveira 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The end result of all this is that the percentage of people who know how to implement systems without AWS/Azure will be a single digit. From that point on, this will be the only "economic" way, it doesn't matter what the prices are.

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couscouspie 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not a factual statement over reality, but more of a normative judgement to justify resignation. Yes, professionals that know how to actually do these things are not abundantly available, but available enough to achieve the transition. The talent exists and is absolutely passionate about software freedom and hence highly intrinsically motivated to work on it. The only thing that is lacking so far is the demand and the talent available will skyrocket, when the market starts demanding it.

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eitally 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They actually are abundantly available and many are looking for work. The volume of "enterprise IT" sysadmin labor dwarfs that of the population of "big tech" employees and cloud architects.

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organsnyder 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

I've worked with many "enterprise IT" sysadmins (in healthcare, specifically). Some are very proficient generalists, but most (in my experience) are fluent in only their specific platforms, no different than the typical AWS engineer.

	▲	toomuchtodo 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Perhaps we need bootcamps for on prem stacks if we are concerned about a skills gap. This is no different imho from the trades skills shortage many developed countries face. The muscle must be flexed. Otherwise, you will be held captive by a provider "who does it all for you". "Today, we are going to calculate the power requirements for this rack, rack the equipment, wire power and network up, and learn how to use PXE and iLO to get from zero to operational."

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friendzis 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> and the talent available will skyrocket, when the market starts demanding it.

Part of what clouds are selling is experience. A "cloud admin" bootcamp graduate can be a useful "cloud engineer", but it takes some serious years of experience to become a talented on prem sre. So it becomes an ouroboros: moving towards clouds makes it easier to move to the clouds.

	▲	SahAssar 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> A "cloud admin" bootcamp graduate can be a useful "cloud engineer" That is not true. It takes a lot more than a bootcamp to be useful in this space, unless your definition is to copy-paste some CDK without knowing what it does.

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bix6 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The only thing that is lacking so far is the demand and the talent available will skyrocket, when the market starts demanding it.

But will the market demand it? AWS just continues to grow.

	▲	bluGill an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Only time will tell. It depends on when someone with a MBA starts asking questions about cloud spending and runs the real numbers. People promoting self hosting often are not counting all the cost of self hosting (AWS has people working 24x7 so that if something fails someone is there to take action)

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infecto 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s all anecdotal but in my experiences it’s usually opposite. Bored senior engineer wants to use something new and picks a AWS bespoke service for a new project.

I am sure it happens a multitude of ways but I have never seen the case you are describing.

	▲	alpinisme 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’ve seen your case more than the ransom scenario too. But also even more often: early-to-mid-career dev saw a cloud pattern trending online, heard it was a new “best practice,” and so needed to find a way to move their company to using it.