I was one of the very first advocates for AWS back when it was brand new - SQS, S3, EC2 SimpleDB - it was a lot smaller back then. In fact I organised the very first AWS event in Melbourne when the AWS rep came from the US to evangelise.
Cloud computing was an absolutely mind blowing revolution - suddenly your startup could run its own computer systems in minutes without need to install and run your own systems in a data center. This was an absolute game changer, and I really drank the AWS Kool Aid down to every last drop then I licked out the cup. I was all in on AWS in a big way.
I remained a massive AWS fanboi for 15 years or so - a real true believer - I was all in on AWS.
Relationships break down a little at a time - one or two things start to bother you, you still love it over all but sure, there's some minor down sides here and there. But hey! It's still absolutely awesome and you still love it, right? But you notice more and more things that ain't right, that you don't like, that's broken or bad. Until one day there's a final thing that you notice and the scales have tipped and you suddenly realise all at once - "I don't love this relationship anymore".
Here's some of the things that chipped away over time:
- It really annoyed me that for the first 6 years of its existence AWS did not build its own client libraries, instead leaving the job to "our wonderful community" to implement client libs for languages like Python, happy to let programmers burn their weekends and nights writing software for free for the benefit of AWS.
- It super annoyed me that AWS did not move from Python2 to Python 3 for a ridiculous period of time.
- DynamoDB - there's not much software that I hate - but oh boy - DynamoDB what a hot pile of garbage. I tried it and ended up with a $75USD bill by the end of the day. And its not just the cost, it's just the worst system I can imagine in every possible way.
- 20 cents a gigabyte egress - oh boy - holy schmoly do you have any idea how expensive this is? And it's gone down over time to the still ridiculously expensive 9 cents per gigabyte. This is fucking insanely expensive. If you use AWS and 9 cents per gigabyte egress is not front of mind then look in the mirror to find the stooge - it's you.
- Crazy sneaky complex billing in which they hit you for data movement within their own systems, double billing you and sometimes triple billing you. Billing footguns and traps are everywhere - you must be a deep expert to avoid them.
- IAM - the hideously complex auth and access rules system - this was invented by Lucifer sitting on his burning throne in the ninth level of Hell as the worst possible torment for those who have been sent below for using AWS.
- Complexity in everything - once I noticed the complexity of IAM I could not unsee the complexity everywhere in AWS. The weirdest thing is that AWS true believers say "you MUST use AWS because its too complex to run your own computer systems, Linux, hardware networking security etc". These true believers have blinded themselves to the unbelievable, massive complexity of pretty much *everything* in AWS. AWS is ridiculously complex and you need to employ a team of expensive experts to run the show.
- AWS Lambda - yeah I really bought the sell on this - "its scalable!!!!", and I ignored the slow startup times, the MASSIVE development complexity. There's simply no genuine benefit to AWS Lambda compared to running your own web servers, and there's many many down sides. When eventually I moved out of AWS the hardest thing to undo was the AWS Lambda stuff. The vendor lock-in is real. If you're using AWS Lambda then you have to work to keep convincing yourself this is better than your own web servers. Keep convincing yourself that using AWS Lambda is not a horrible mistake.
- AWS stomped on open source projects - despite the clear desire of projects like Elasticsearch, Redis, and MongoDB not to be cloned and monetized, AWS pushed ahead with OpenSearch, Valkey, and DocumentDB anyway, capturing the hosted-service money after those communities and companies had built the markets; the result was a wave of defensive licenses like SSPL, Elastic License, RSAL, and other source-available models designed less to stop ordinary users than to stop AWS from stripping open-source infrastructure for parts, owning the customer relationship. AWS is a predator.
- And there's many, many more reasons to hate AWS, but I don't even like thinking about AWS so I'm not going to sour my morning by thinking of more reasons to hate AWS.
Relations break down slowly, until a sudden realisation that its over - that's exactly what happened to my love for AWS. One day my switch flicked and I went from fanboi to hater pretty much instantly. I moved everything out of AWS and shut down all my accounts except one. I left a little bit of stuff on AWS because its genuinely the right solution for me - I left my domains on Route53, left a few backups in S3 and continued to use AWS Workmail (which they have just notified me is now shutting down in 12 months).
And recently I went back to AWS. WHAT?!?!? WHY? You might ask. To get some research done. Do a few tests, get in and out.
I wanted to see how well Claude/Anthropic works on AWS Bedrock (it works the same for Claude Code but it's slower, and is WAY, WAY more expensive than having an Anthropic subscription).
More recently I logged in and fired up an EC2 spot instance of a 192 core machine and had been testing for 3 hours or so when I got an email from AWS: "Suspected security breach of your account".
BUT they suspended/restricted my account.
Now my AWS WorkMail - my main business account - does not work - no-one can send emails any more.
I cannot create any sort of AWS resource, I cannot do the testing I was trying to get done.
So here I am four days after they suspended my account. I still want to do the testing on a big machine. I am dreading having to "request quota" to be allowed to do that. My business email system still does not work.
I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return.
I'm extremely glad I moved off AWS all those years ago and its sad that a return visit should bring down the email system that I left on AWS, foolishly trusting. Fool me once and all that.
Maybe one day they will get around to unsuspending my account.