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I remember a campaign few years ago telling startupers to use a cloud provider because hosting is a commodity and they won't earn money with it. People like El

• mmt 8y ago
  > I remember a campaign few years ago telling startupers to use a cloud provider because hosting is a commodity and they won't earn money with it. That was the gist. IIRC, the essence of the argument was that, because running hardware in a colo isn't the startup's core competency, it's best to outsource it. The push to outsource (especially by VCs and other outsiders and/or "business" interests) is hardly new, nor is it new to do so while ignoring potential future costs or even ignoring how closely intertwined to the core competency something actually is (witness the tech offshoring fad in the US). What's particularly interesting to me is that cloud outsourcing not only has such huge potential future costs but can start costing right away. Hardware has up-front purchase costs, but those can often be smoothed out with a lease, if cash flow is that much of a concern.