[druiid]

I'd say the tax portion is actually a huge consideration for many businesses that would be comparing between leasing or buying. If you purchase $100k of hardware or more, that can have a pretty significant tax benefit.

[mgkimsal]

Yes, again, true, but... the majority of people I know that have these discussions, and make these decisions, aren't dealing at anywhere near that level, and start to justify AWS because of a free micro tier vs having to shell out $40/month on a VPS.

Again, yes, there can be bigger considerations at play, but I contend it materially impacts far fewer people than think they would be impacted.

[727374]

You're only getting the tax benefit because you've had to spend 100k to start out with (which you wouldn't have to do when renting from AWS).