I’ve definitely benefited from having practically infinite computing power be just one API call (and credit card bill) away. I remember before AWS and provisioning computing resources was way more time consuming and annoying.
Maybe yes, provided you weren't the one paying for it. In all projects I've worked on the monthly cloud bill came out higher, then add on top the migration cost, and all for what? A flexibility 90% of those applications didn't need and won't use.
Migrating to the cloud transferred capital expenditures (server inventory, depreciation, real estate, etc) to operating expenses (monthly utility bill)
For many businesses, it was better to spend more on opex, than to have all these assets on their balance sheets that need to be managed long term.
Valid point for some, but I was comparing compare apples with apples. I was talking about servers rented in a data center, so it was opex before cloud as well, just cheaper (or, less expensive).
The fact that this shift happened in an era where capital was dirt cheap because of macroeconomic policies illustrate how insane that was. The trade of between capex and opex is supposed to depend on the economic situation, but some people like you just understood it as capex bad / opex good, which is a terrible take.
