There are lots of advantages and disadvantages to hosting in a "cloud" environment, so I'm not trying to paint it as rainbows and ponies.
If a company has a short runway (ie. not a lot of cash in the bank) however, hosting in the cloud means essentially renting capacity for which you do not need to maintain. Sounds good to me.
It's a fun pendulum to watch swing though, I'll admit. Some companies, with small runways, host in the cloud because it's rented capacity without too much administration. They may grow wildly, when they notice they are paying the "cloud tax" and could considerably save money by hosting themselves. They grow some more, see how much money and attention they need to put into infrastructure and how slow it is for their business to increase capacity. In order to keep up with growth and maintain focus on their core business, they move to the cloud.
If a company has a short runway (ie. not a lot of cash in the bank) however, hosting in the cloud means essentially renting capacity for which you do not need to maintain. Sounds good to me.
It's a fun pendulum to watch swing though, I'll admit. Some companies, with small runways, host in the cloud because it's rented capacity without too much administration. They may grow wildly, when they notice they are paying the "cloud tax" and could considerably save money by hosting themselves. They grow some more, see how much money and attention they need to put into infrastructure and how slow it is for their business to increase capacity. In order to keep up with growth and maintain focus on their core business, they move to the cloud.