With AWS, the development, operational and financial burdens are higher, and the frequency of failure is much higher.
EBS is not a unique feature, as there are multiple equivalents of EBS, along with higher level methods of replicating data, namely, couchDB, riak, cassandra, etc.
But I think you've answered my question- people use AWS because they don't realize this.
If you are starting up, where are you going to get the capital, expertise, and people to operate and maintain those systems? You have better things to do.
I love it when people tell me spending more money and time and effort on something that is less flexible, reliable or performant is somehow saving money, time and effort. I think you do not understand what you are talking about and you're giving me marketing spin, in fact that must be the case. You're simply wrong. I've explained it, you're not listening.
Of course the kicker is that this is in a thread about how a bug in Amazon means that the EBS volumes that were allegedly being backed up, actually weren't.
EBS is not a unique feature, as there are multiple equivalents of EBS, along with higher level methods of replicating data, namely, couchDB, riak, cassandra, etc.
But I think you've answered my question- people use AWS because they don't realize this.