Europe needs hyperscalers (lots of them)

> quite a few who have done the math have ended up with the conclusion that it's cheaper to run your own infrastructure, as long as it can be utilized fully and load isn't hugely variable (and unpredictably so).

Sure, and that's fine. This is just normal commercial activity, you check available options and decide which one is the best for you. This also happens all the time with "classic" businesses that need to do lease-vs-own calculations or find suppliers for some components.

> For one, they're (pretty much by definition) huge companies, so almost inevitably they end up doing huge company things like lobbying, tax "optimization", and so on. Exhibit A: "Do no evil."

I actually like that. Business interests of companies should influence the lawmakers. I just don't necessarily like the _level_ of their influence.

> They structure their pricing in a way that it's easy and cheap to get hitched, but very expensive compared to their actual costs once you scale up later. As you say, that's about as ethical (or not) as any other business trying to increase its profits - but it can be a valid argument against using their services.

It really depends. I know AWS from inside out, so I can easily keep my costs way below what I'd pay for a similar service if I were to build it myself. But I agree that AWS makes it very easy to build infrastructures that just burn through money. But it's also not necessarily a sign of "evilness", especially since AWS provides tons of tools to control the costs.