Re: How is this Cost-Effective for Businesses?
Rental is always expensive compared to buying, but there wouldn't be a business in it otherwise.
Though it does demonstrate a lot of the confused thinking around cloud - the model works great for things you only need temporarily, but if it's for anything truly permanent the direct cost benefit isn't exactly obvious.
Guess it's like any other rental or lease then.
It's not like the numbers are difficult to understand but there does seem to be a blindness to cost when it comes to paying for cloud services vs buying actual kit. Like it's not real money, at least up to the point where the massive accidental bills appear. Though again that's exactly how many people get into PCP/lease/phone contracts on a personal basis because they can't understand what the 'affordable' monthly bill really costs overall.
You use cloud for flexibility and the possibilities that gives, not because it's a cheaper way to build the same capacity as your fixed systems. As I repeatedly have to point out when explaining about my private cloud infrastructure when discussing costs.