I always agree with a lot of what Rachel writes, and she gets a lot right here too, but having said that flexibility also has value. Like her I've done it both

I always agree with a lot of what Rachel writes, and she gets a lot right here too, but having said that flexibility also has value. Like her I've done it both ways... actually I've done it more than two ways. Servers in the closet, servers at the co-lo, VPS from a hosting provider, virtual machines from a cloud provider. No question in my mind that a good cloud provider lets me do more, faster, and for (at least initially) less money. And the stuff we build on their platform is way more flexible and adaptable to changing conditions than it ever has been. This doesn't obviate one little bit her main point that it all has to be overseen and controlled or it gets out of hand.