The better availability and scalability of “the cloud” always relied on so many things being done and maintained just right by just the right people that I don’t think it’s ever been broadly true.
You get such a large performance malus and increase in complexity right from the start with The Cloud that it’ starts at a serious deficit, and only eventually maybe overcomes that to be overall beneficial with the right workload, people, and processes. Most companies are lacking minimum two of those to justify “the cloud”.
And that’s without even considering the cost.
What I think it actually is, is a way for companies that can’t competently (I mean at an organizational/managerial level) maintain and adequately make-available computing resources, to pay someone else to do it. They’re so bad at that, that they’re willing to pay large costs in money, performance, and maybe uptime to get it.
Not just stats. Configuration changes take around a day to take effect as well. Figuring out how to do authentication and permissions was such a pain. A half-assed integration with google cloud doesn't quite behave like the normal google cloud. Vague error messages. And every time you changed something you couldn't be certain your new setting was incorrect until you waited for an approximate day.
