Cloud is just like any other tool. Apply cloud with competence & positive intentions, and you will likely succeed. Approach cloud with prejudice & disdain and you could only have an unhappy experience.<p>A lot has changed since AWS/EC2 was launched. Almost 2 decades have passed. It is time to refine our thinking if we are still stuck in the world of VMs and containers. I think the next big wave is "cloud native", but I have detected some problems. Between all of the partners, vendors & customers I work with, I'm operating with 5+ totally unique & mutually-exclusive definitions of what this term <i>actually</i> means.<p>The harsh reality that I've arrived at is that an aggressive application of first-party-only-actually-cloud-native-for-real will result in the loss of 80%+ of existing IT/dev staff in most big org charts. I've been on several consulting calls this month alone that indicate much of the ongoing on-prem+cloud hybrid clown shows are simply an ass-covering exercise. We showed a truly cloud native SaaS app ecosystem to a prospect and their developers flipped into a very defensive posture within seconds of realizing how few resources we used to eclipse their in-house efforts.<p>To be clear - I still don't think cloud is for everyone, but if you are going to do it half-assed, I won't bother considering the statistical relevance of your attempt.