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A comment on Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by tomc1985 on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @10:44AM (#31261165)
There's a finance angle behind cloud stuff too that's irrestible for the bean counters: cloud stuff is operations expense, on-prem is a capital expense. Unfortunately these folks are heavily incentivized to favor OpEx

I'm not a bean counter, all I know is those guys at my last job would rattle off about it like zombies. IIRC its a tax thing

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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by jscheel on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:09AM (#31261568)
Opex is fully deductible each year the expense occurs, wheras capex requires amortized depreciation over the life of the purchased item. Makes it harder to calculate taxes.
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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by jannes on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @03:54PM (#31265008)
Should we call it Amortisation as a Service (AaaS) then?

Is that really the only benefit?

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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by jscheel on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:06PM (#31265139)
I mean, I'm not a bean counter. I'm just guessing that's why they like it.
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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by morelisp on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:40AM (#31262034)
It's not a tax thing, long-term leases or colocation is a liability for acquisitions. (You could also build a revenue-positive company, but that's the loser way out, apparently.)
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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by goodpoint on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:31AM (#31261901)
Wrong. People has been leasing on-prem hardware for decades before the cloud existed.

Depending on taxation rules you might want to buy or lease.

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Re:Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers? by tomc1985 on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @12:02PM (#31262310)
At this employer it seems most of the stuff in their datacenter was purchased.
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