I've operated at companies using both models, and have observed similar reactions to suggestions of using the cloud.

To me it's like anything else in engineering, are the costs, risks, and benefits fully understood, and worth the tradeoff in the particular context.

I worked for a startup doing internet of things, the consumer would buy a device and get lifetime service baked in. And that company was a step further, just renting space in a colo was incredibly cost efficient, which supported the sales model and competitive landscape of that product. But it was also very costly to attention, one of the most valuable resources. But it can also get costly in non-intuitive ways, an example that comes to mind is we started to get interviews where a generation of candidates no longer had experience with metal, it was a foreign world to them.

With more experience, I find it's really the costs that get severely underestimated, both for and against the suggestion.

Especially in larger organizations, it's easy to lose track of all the distributed soft costs that DIY can bring (and all the bus factors that may be involved). There are lots of people that kinda want to get paid and get benefits and which require some level of management structure.

At some point, you have people (on here and elsewhere) questioning what all these people in an organization do. PART of the answer is that they're doing internal work that could have been outsourced in various ways.

I’ve struggled with convincing colleagues to host on something other than AWS. I’m not sure they understand the costs and aren’t simply doubling-down on the evil they already know.

In fact, I had no idea our static website at a scale-up in 2019 was costing us 90€/month; it came up when we were told to cut costs. Developers don’t always have a say in these things.

Heck, I then went and got a series of certifications in GCP. Even then, I’m not sure I’d understand the full complexity and pricing options of GCP. Smaller clouds and simple VPS solutions really are the overlooked option.

> fully understood

Unfortunately this is neither the case for very large, or very small companies.

Very large companies may have some experience, but it is usually legacy. Or buried under processes and politics.

Small companies will not have the experience to make the analysis