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Because the expected value of using AWS is greater than the expected value of self-hosting. It's not that nobody's ever heard of running on their own metal. L
by uranium 5y ago
Because the expected value of using AWS is greater than the expected value of self-hosting. It's not that nobody's ever heard of running on their own metal. Look back at what everyone did before AWS, and how fast they ran screaming away from it as soon as they could. Once you didn't have to do that any more, it's just so much better that the rare outages are worth it for the vast majority of startups.
Medical devices, banks, the military, etc. should generally run on their own hardware. The next photo-sharing app? It's just not worth it until they hit tremendous scale.
- chucknthem 5y agoAgree with your first point. On the second though, at some point, infrastructure like AWS are going to be more reliable than what many banks, medical device operators etc can provide themselves. asking them to stay on their own hardware is asking for that industry to remain slow, bespoke and expensive.
- uranium 5y agoAgreed, and it'll be a gradual switch rather than a single point, smeared across industries. Likely some operations won't ever go over, but it'll be a while before we know.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoHard agree with the second paragraph. It is incredibly difficult for non-tech companies to hire quality software and infrastructure engineers - they usually pay less and the problems aren't as interesting.