[vidarh]

How much revenue you can generate per developer is totally irrelevant. If you generate millions in revenue but server costs eats it all up, paying a 3x+ premium to run on AWS can easily bankrupt you. By all means, if your server costs are inconsequential to your bottom line, go nuts.

I've just moved a client off EC2 because the premium they were paying would have been a massive problem. The 85% reduction in hosting cost has bought them months of extra runway. Their operational costs related to their hosting also dropped - there's simply been fewer issues to deal with.

I'm sure there are instances where AWS is fine. But there are also plenty of cases where it is a matter of survival to cut those costs.

[griffordson]

All good points. I should have been more specific. You can generate > $1M in profit with 1 or 2 devs, and in that case, AWS is a no brainer. In my experience, it is much more difficult to manage dedicated hardware in multiple data centers for high availability with only 1 or 2 devs. The opportunity costs alone in that case can kill you.

But I don't live in a world where runway is a consideration so YMMV. At the time I commented, the parent post was getting downvoted. I've seen that knee jerk reaction on HN multiple times, and that is what prompted my comment.