The beauty of AWS is that the marginal cost[1] is low. It might cost slighly more to use an AWS instance than servers(s) than to run server(s) of similar compu

The beauty of AWS is that the marginal cost[1] is low. It might cost slighly more to use an AWS instance than servers(s) than to run server(s) of similar computing power. But once you build those servers, you're stuck with them. You also need a swathe of IT staff to care for them. Thus, the marginal cost of adding computing power is quite high, since it's hard to scale back, short of selling the server or leasing out it's capacity to others. AWS was one of the first _usable_ services that allowed people to purchase computing power on demand easily. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost