[torginus]

I used to volunteer for an animal shelter doing IT stuff. They didn't really have much money, and what they had they needed for actual, real-world problems like buying dog food and paying vet's fees etc.

They ran on ancient hand-me down Windows PCs, with a donated HP server, fully on-prem. The MS licences they got from some government/MS program for free (not sure).

It was kinda crappy, but it did the job, there were some databases, Active Directory, some CRUD stuff to manage the internal workings of the shelter, and a locally hosted website.

But it cost nothing to run besides the electricity, and it did the job.

If we were to replicate the same system on top of SOTA AWS hardware, it would cost thousands of dollars per month, which would be a significant part of their operating budget.

Considering how much they actually needed every cent, I shudder at the thought.