If your startup survive next 6 months it is already more cost-effective to buy a server.
And if startup fails you still have a server to run your next startup.
Your calculation is over simplified. For example, hardware just doesn't run for five years without glitch once once you have multiple servers.
For sure Cloud is more expensive, as it charges a premium for not having to invest upfront in a lot of hardware, however,if it was 1000% no one would be using the Cloud.
Scaling how often I have failures on my 80 servers, of which 50 are similar in spec to Ahrefs (16 HDDs), it should still be less than one full-time position to manage 850 servers. Probably much less, as I'm a bit inefficient when it's <5% of my job.
I have a fixed day or two each year working out what to buy and getting quotes (which would be the same time whether it's 20 or 200 servers), half a day per 20 servers for installation in racks, and call it half a day per 20 for initial configuration (most of the time to script the process, so it would also be similar for 200). After that, it's at absolute most an hour every couple of months to deal with a failed disc or similar.
Did you see how much we saved comparing to AWS? We could even hire an admin for each of 850 servers and would still have money left.
But we have only one person taking care of hardware replacements. That is enough for the whole setup.
Sorry, but if I'm reading the article correctly you didn't save any money, because you weren't using AWS in the first place. All you did was to do some back of the napkin math what it might cost you to run something on AWS.
Isn't it how you save money by picking cheaper product instead of more expensive?
We save by buying hardware and renting DC space.
If we were using AWS we would not save.
predictions are hazy, hindsight is 20/20. There's a reason there are dozens of companies dedicated to cutting cloud costs because surprise, they aren't configured well. Most of these probably severely overestimate compute needs and don't factor things like autoscaling.
I am bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years. We are at $100M+ ARR and almost a hundred people.
Still enjoying it. We've slowly built a strong team during these years and it is a real pleasure to participate and see them solve problems, innovate and iterate. There is nothing VC funding can offer that would make my life better or my work more enjoyable.
I am thankful to myself for ignoring VC funds and acquisition offers.
Not all content is equal. Good content require efforts, often efforts of a team.
Youtube is a good example of how revenue share will work in practice. Some creators are getting millions there, some maybe hundreds. But as a consumer you can find good content for almost any topic you can think of.
Youtube is slowly killing itself with abusive revenue practices but ignore THAT bombshell for a moment and focus on why you are wrong. Hint: it actually has almost nothing to do with the fact that a large portion of internet users don't like videos.
It is hard to believe how high cloud costs are.