[IncRnd]

> It's not paying by the hour that was the problem, it was the huge capex and million dollar service contracts that made people want freedom. In that sense, cloud is the opposite of mainframe:

Actually, it was identical according to you description. Today, there is the decision of on-prem vs of remote computing, which was the same decision then.

> instead of, "Here, spend a million dollars and get locked into a service contract," it's, "Here, spend $0 up front and just pay for usage, then leave whenever you want."

The huge capex and million dollar service contracts still exist today, for example. There have been articles posted here on HN about companies that moved to the cloud for savings, grew their business, and eventually left their cloud provider due to high costs.

[klodolph]

> Actually, it was identical according to you description. Today, there is the decision of on-prem vs of remote computing, which was the same decision then.

No, it wasn't the same decision. With cloud I can use as much or as little cloud resources as I'd like, and I only pay for what I use. Back in the day, remote computing was not like that.

> The huge capex and million dollar service contracts still exist today, for example.

Right, that's exactly what I was saying. Cloud offers an alternative to huge capex, which is the biggest drawback of mainframes, not counting the fact mainframes are difficult to second-source.

[mikestew]

There have been articles posted here on HN about companies that moved to the cloud for savings, grew their business, and eventually left their cloud provider due to high costs.

I've never been in a position to find out the hard way, but that's how "the cloud" always struck me. "Have access to the computing power of a multimillion dollar mainframe w/o buying the mainframe!" But if/when you actually need and can afford a multimillion dollar mainframe (or equivalent), cloud pricing might not be much savings.