I think one of the benefits of cloud is (in theory) the agility that it brings. So much is abstracted away that you truly can start to focus on what's more impo

I think one of the benefits of cloud is (in theory) the agility that it brings. So much is abstracted away that you truly can start to focus on what's more important to your business. There's a cost to that value. So for example, while the cost to serve may be lower with your own infrastructure, it may be that the opportunity costs go up and your ability to grow that revenue stream or customer base is diminished without cloud. Another thing that came to mind reading this was - what would I need to make such a switch (from cloud to your own data centre)? And then I thought, you could provide a business doing this - commoditised hardware and services, providing the real-estate and the engineers, and more importantly, providing the same kind of service stack you find in the cloud. Then I thought, that could be a cool business for someone. And then I thought - there's nothing stopping Amazon or Microsoft or Google from offering that. I guess if you have a very clear understanding of your needs, a mature appreciation for what it will take, and a good handle on your likely growth, then taking control of it all may make sense. But for a lot of business (especially those not actually tech businesses per se), it would more likely be a return to pain.