That might or might not be true, and can change either way. Don't build for AWS only, but as a startup outsourcing all those details to AWS saves you the effort of figuring them out. When you are facebook scale you will have a whole department to doing what AWS does, but when you only have two users putting dedicated redundant computers in a datacenter is more expensive than AWS even before you get into the admin costs.

I witnessed that myself, but what alternatives exist for a company that is concerned about security, long term support, and general dependability ? I don't see my managers allowing me to use a small company without a significant plan of record