There are some merits to AWS, I can agree with that, and there comes a point where a startup outgrows baremetal / cookie cutter VPS-es, but I disagree with "AWS

There are some merits to AWS, I can agree with that, and there comes a point where a startup outgrows baremetal / cookie cutter VPS-es, but I disagree with "AWS is trivial" and that it takes a day or two to get things set up. For basic set up like getting a few servers done behind a load balancer and a database - sure - and I'd argue that services like DigitalOcean and Linode are actually easier to set up than AWS for basic services. To actually do more advanced stuff (the thing that AWS is good for) and utilize tools such as Terraform, you'd essentially need to hire engineers that are experts in AWS in addition to engineers who can do devops, as there's only so much "magic" AWS can provide.