I get what AWS offers, I've been a customer there for many years, my point is that as a startup, eventually you figure something out that is more stable and get

I get what AWS offers, I've been a customer there for many years, my point is that as a startup, eventually you figure something out that is more stable and gets some traction (or you hope to at least). At that point, moving to a less flexible but overall vastly cheaper solution is often the answer. So, the question becomes, "How much do I spend on AWS per year?" and something like "If I could hire one person to save me $500k+/year, would I do that?". If you're a small business with an uncertain future, and smallish AWS spend (<$50k/month) -- sure, stay with AWS until you get into the situation I outlined above.