The Coming Decentralization of Cloud

“History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.” – Mark Twain

This quote resonates deeply when considering the pendulum swings in technology. We’ve seen boom-and-bust cycles with various trends, from blockchain to AI. Some trends have more staying power than others, but the pendulum swings one way, only to swing back—sometimes with a vengeance, correcting the overreach of the previous swing.

One of the most significant pendulum swings of the last few decades was the shift to cloud computing.

The Cloud Revolution: Democratization of Compute

The cloud democratized compute, enabling anyone—from an individual developer to a small company—to spin up resources on demand. It eliminated the need for massive upfront investments in data centers, allowing even the smallest players to scale 1,000x when needed. Whether it’s a Black Friday surge or a viral moment on social media, cloud makes it simple: just turn a few dials and add more resources.

This shift was transformative. It leveled the playing field, reducing barriers to entry and empowering startups to succeed with minimal overhead. A nerd in a closet could launch a business that rivaled enterprises. That’s an incredible leap.

However, in our love affair with the hyperscalers, we may have let the pendulum swing too far. We started to rely on them for everything, rarely questioning their offerings or considering alternatives.

The Pushback: Exiting the Biggest of the Cloud

Recently, David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), co-founder of Basecamp and Hey, made waves by announcing his companies' departure from the cloud. The projected savings? A staggering $1.5 million per year.

Love or hate DHH, his reasoning struck a chord: why continue paying AWS—who is reporting record-breaking profits—when it may not align with your needs? This decision resonated widely, sparking conversations across the tech community.

The cloud’s promise was democratization—a godsend for small startups. But for enterprises, the tradeoffs can become liabilities, especially when it comes to cost control. The reality is, not every workload belongs in the worlds biggest cloud. Some workloads are better off in clouds that don’t charge for egress and offer wildly more affordable compute resources. Some workloads should be run on-premises, especially those running near capacity most of the time. In such cases, owning the hardware can yield immense cost savings.

Why Haven’t More Companies Moved Away From AWS?

The answer lies in the historical user experience. Hyperscalers like AWS provided intuitive dashboards that made deploying resources easy, even for less-experienced engineers. Want to spin up a database or a server with redundancy? A few clicks and you’re set. Smaller clouds, until now, had clunky user interfaces that lacked the most recent developments in cloud native technologies. And on-prem solutions were traditionally clunky, requiring complex software stacks and expensive hypervisor layers to achieve similar functionality (I recommend you read: The Broadcom-VMware Industry Impact Report).

But times are changing.

The New Paradigm: Alternative Clouds and Hybrid Cloud/On-Prem Solutions.

Today, solutions like Civo enable the same seamless cloud experience at a fraction of the price of hyperscalers. Civo also enables you to have the same experience on your own hardware. With Civo Cloud you can spin up a Kubernetes cluster and a managed database with ease, and never be charged for egress. With CivoStack Enterprise, you can skip the hypervisor layer and provision the same things in just a few clicks on your own hardware. Whether you’re deploying in the cloud, on-prem, or both, the experience is unified and streamlined.

Kubernetes, in particular, has abstracted much of the compute layer. As long as data transfer costs are manageable (and there is no reason they shouldn’t be aside from lock-in), the physical location of your compute resources matters less than ever. Why are you still paying exorbitant egress fees? It’s your data, after all—but that’s a topic for another blog post.

The Pendulum Swings Back

The pendulum is swinging back toward decentralization, but this isn’t a call to flee the cloud entirely. For many workloads, the cloud remains the obvious choice, and democratization (the original promise) is even more pronounced in more affordable alternatives to AWS. For others, an on-prem solution could deliver significant cost savings and control. The beauty of today’s landscape is that you no longer have to settle for overwhelming cloud costs or a painful on-prem experience.

CivoStack Enterprise makes on-prem workloads viable and straightforward, while Civo ensures the transition is seamless and the experience is the same. Start in the cloud, move to hybrid, or the other way around. The same dashboard works wherever you run your workloads, offering flexibility and efficiency.

Rhyming with History

History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. We’ve seen pendulums swing back before, and this time is no different. The trend is clear. Five years from now, many businesses will embrace alternatives to AWS and a hybrid approach to cloud and on-prem workloads. No one ever got fired for choosing AWS, but the same way those letters are no longer IBM, it’s time for the new, the better, to rise and shine.

By leveraging best-in-class tools like Civo, you can prepare for this shift and position yourself for success. The transition doesn’t have to be disruptive—just smooth and strategic.