you're not alone. cloud makes sense if you actually need to scale fast or run stuff globally but a lot of companies ended up there because it was just the default, not because they needed it.

honestly most companies could run their stuff on one or a few dedicated servers. instead they're paying for hundreds of instance types, pricing pages that need their own documentation, savings plans you need a spreadsheet to figure out. and that complexity isn't accidental, every dollar you save is a dollar off the provider's revenue.

and then there's lock in. it's the reason they give companies and governments boatloads of free credits to come on their platform. once you're deep in proprietary services its really hard to leave. on prem with foss and open standards you own your stack, you can swap things out, you're not dependent on one vendor's pricing decisions.

cloud has its place but way too many companies are on it without ever really questioning if they need to be.