Netflix only uses amazon for the “control plane” - ie the “web app” you’re navigating when using the Netflix app. The actual delivery of media happens via their own CDN (of bare-metal servers.)
You mentioned Netflix, they did started with their own data centers eventually they moved their website to AWS, but all the heavy lifting is still happening through their caching servers that they send to ISPs[1].
Imagine if Netflix or Twitch were founded today - two businesses with demanding media-hosting needs. Would they be better if they used Amazon infra or built out their own data centers and CDNs?
I'm really curious about this because I'd like to get into the space and I'm mulling over bare metal as a competitive advantage vs a barrier to scaling. I've seen how difficult it is to provision and upgrade machines. At the same time, if you were to make it to scale, it seems like having the bare metal and the talent to manage it puts the ball back in your court. Am I wrong?