> I'm unaware of any dedicated provider that will let me take a $20/mo small instance ... You are looking in the wrong places. Dedicated server providers offer

> I'm unaware of any dedicated provider that will let me take a $20/mo small instance ... You are looking in the wrong places. Dedicated server providers offer dedicated servers. What you want is a VPS. There are dozens of VPS providers with a multitude of products and billing by the minute or by the month and everything in between. > In many places dedi or colo requires contract negotiation with the provider and involves some sort of purchasing dept. There are some places I've worked with where getting a dedi/colo could be weeks or months of different teams paperwork. This is merely a failure on the part of your employer. > It's hard to beat the operational flexibility AWS provides, but I can see a few scenarios where creating your own mini private cloud out of dedi/colo servers could be more cost effective. It's more like the other way around. To refute my point, please give some examples where AWS is cheaper AT SCALE. AWS might make some things easier or more convenient, but in no way does it come cheaper at scale as their PR flak claims.