Just look at the insane(!!!) bandwidth costs...
Why does Netflix outsource to AWS?
The gripes I've had with dedicated infrastructure team is their knowledge/experience can be hit or miss. My current company is about saving money, so sometimes there's junior guys on there. Or there's guys who need to handle 20 different products, they're good at 10..but suck at the other 10. I personally don't believe they have best practices (but I'm not an infrastructure expert), because downtime happens.
Nowadays they are such a good advert for AWS they probably negotiated a deal which is way cheaper than the published price.
Also Netflix’ major cost is content; servers are kind of a rounding error.
I seem to recall they offered a rack full of their own caching equipment to medium and larger ISPs (to save both sides streaming costs while providing better service to Netflix customers). Basically a private app-specific CDN.
Nothing precludes using AWS/GCP in limited ways, where the value proposition is especially good. Just not for the base capacity in your core infrastructure.
I have spent a good chunk of my career at a Fortune 10 energy company.
We hired people who specialized in working with SAP, Oracle databases, MSSQL, messaging (think MSFT Lync), email infrastructure, physical servers for web apps, Cisco, desktop provisioning, application development, mobile device management, ticketing software, etc. etc.
It’s very hard and very expensive to acquire the right talent to manage a particular technology, administer it, support it, etc. Every vended software we work with has some company that looks at our name and comes up with some outrageous cost for a few licenses, dev seats, or whatever their business model is.
Acquiring the right quality talent is even harder. You bring them in. You try to teach them about your business so they feel valued and part of something big. They don’t stick around. They want to be at the Googles and Amazons of the world. They leave.
In this scenario, I’d rather use SQS than try to interview, hire, train, and make the hardware/software investment in running an SQS equivalent service in house. I don’t want to hire DBAs and build that profession in my org. It’s not our core business. My customers in the business don’t give a shit about it. They want something fast, reliable, and dependable.
Fundamentally, this argument of just do it yourself to save money is short sighted. There are a lot of factors. If you believe hiring Some internal teams is always cheaper than using managed services, you’re in for a world of hurt.
If my company’s core products or services are centered on let’s say acquiring surface and mineral rights, discovering hydrocarbons, and using the right technology for drilling, it makes practically zero sense for me to now also try to become an expert at maintaining servers, hiring top tier software engineer, etc etc. I don’t have the kinds of problems to keep them engaged nor do I have the budget.
Software is a part of the business insofar that it enables business, but it’s not ultimately what drives profit.
Many of the top tech companies outsource HR software or recruiting entirely, use travel and expense software software as a service, Oracle financials for payroll instead of writing it themselves, etc etc. Why? Because they want to invest their money and talent into the core areas that make them a profit.