This is not a new phenomenon. As early as in 2009 I worked for a company (ads, but not Google) which outgrew the typical "cloud" cost structure at the time, and

This is not a new phenomenon. As early as in 2009 I worked for a company (ads, but not Google) which outgrew the typical "cloud" cost structure at the time, and moved everything to a more traditional datacenter, and saved substantial money even considering 3 more SREs they had to hire to absorb the increased support needs. AWS charges what the market will bear, and as such it was never designed to make sense for everyone. One needs to re-evaluate on the back of the napkin from time to time.