Fair enough. But if the alternative is setting up a consumer grade PC on a consumer grade internet connection in a (non environmentally or power controlled) co

Fair enough. But if the alternative is setting up a consumer grade PC on a consumer grade internet connection in a (non environmentally or power controlled) corner of a room at home, then surely we are looking at a similar situation? Given that spooling up a RDS instance is quicker and cheaper than buying all the hardware and spending time installing and configuring an SQL server, then if time to market is a critical factor, you would choose RDS over a home grown solution, wouldn't you? [Edit: I just realised that this is actually the point you were making, and I got sidetracked by my above question]