There are some benefits to usages of cloud-based tech, and there are some drawbacks. The cloud inherently attempts to decentralize computation (duh). If you ca

There are some benefits to usages of cloud-based tech, and there are some drawbacks. The cloud inherently attempts to decentralize computation (duh). If you can have multiple servers across a country, chances are, one freak accident (weather, power-grid failures, etc) is less likely to bring down your ecosystem. If it's well architected, your users may not even notice. In that sense, it can be fantastic for reliability and scalability since a lot of these cloud server companies allow for easily creating new instances of the same project. If your software is written poorly or your environment is poorly architected, then you can encounter issues using the cloud like centralization as you mentioned, and you'll also have to manage difficult or arcane deployments. You also run into a problem of dependence on your cloud platform of choice. No one likes vendor lock; it hurts flexibility and increases costs in the long run. If your project is AWS based for instance and has a dependence on Lambdas, for instance, what are you going to do if Amazon suddenly raises their costs beyond what your company can reasonably accommodate? There are some workarounds, but they obviously aren't as nice or immediately available. But also, what are your alternatives to using a cloud provider? Your company could create physical infrastructure in safe places, but all the prime spots would be taken up extremely quickly not to mention that it's waaay more costly to build a mainframe on or offsite than it is to spin up an EC2 instance or ten. And if your system isn't on-prem or thereabouts, then it seems like cloud is the only real solution there. Agree 100% with the IDE stuff though