> AWS is expensive when you compare only the raw server costs and do not use reserved instances. But that premium lets you focus on building your product far more than going with a self managed machine. Especially for early stage startups or projects this makes all the difference in the world.
Well, which one is it? The article spoke from the beginning about that they use the idea of tearing down VM's on a daily basis. This is kind of a not having your cake or eating it scenario. If you want to have reserved instances you, well, have to reserve them. Once you've done that (unless I've missed something looking into reserved instances on EC2 before) you can't really remove and re-create a new instance just like that without paying the up-front cost for the instance again.
Really that then takes away a lot of the power, even though you're saving money in the long run. At that point, why not just go with a managed dedicated server provider? You get a whole lot of hardware these days for not a whole lot of money (People have talked endlessly about the different solution providers out there, so I won't repeat any).