Why we're leaving the cloud

Key ideas

Hansson argues that renting cloud computers is mostly a bad deal for medium-sized companies with stable growth, and that running your own servers is easier than marketing suggests.

1. 1

   Know when the cloud pays off

   Hansson says the cloud suits two cases: a simple, low-traffic application getting started, and highly irregular load. He cites the launch of HEY, when sign-ups far outran the forecast, as a time the cloud helped.

2. 2

   Stable load means overpaying for flexibility

   Hansson writes that neither case applies to his company today, so it pays a premium for a possibility it does not need. He compares this to buying costly earthquake insurance far from any fault line.

3. 3

   Question the promised labor savings

   Hansson rejects the argument that managing your own machines costs more in labor. He says running a major service in the cloud makes some things simpler and others more complex, and that he has not heard of companies at his scale materially shrinking their operations teams after moving.

4. 4

   Look at what you actually pay

   Hansson uses HEY's Amazon database and search bill as his example and asks how many servers that budget could buy. He argues that the cloud is sold as computing on demand when it is mostly renting computers, and that renting from someone else is naturally expensive.

5. 5

   Owning fits predictable businesses

   Hansson says 37signals is planning to leave because its business model suits owning hardware and writing it off over years, its growth is mostly predictable, and its staff can run its own machines. He also objects to so much of a decentralized internet running on computers owned by a few large companies, and thinks other firms may be in a similar position.

In David’s words

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