AWS is good for organizations that need to minimize upfront costs, orgs too small to support suitable ops staff, overflow traffic, people who hope they're about to hockeystick growth or have no idea if they'll even be around in a year. Also it's good for people busy wasting limited partner's money.
It is, however, a pretty bad choice for a campaign with huge coffers, a large staff, certainty about the length of time they'll be in operation, and a very predictable seasonal use pattern. And of course they do it all with money from small contributors.
I'm not saying that aws or especially cloud models aren't a wonderful tool in a lot of cases. But we're training a whole generation of web jockies who are reflexively going to AWS because they think ops and infrastructure is scary.
I thought this was pretty obvious.
> Every dollar you save on your server infrastructure is a cell phone plan for a lonely field office in Texas struggling to make a dent in a hopeless battle but they're there because they care.
I have no idea what you're trying to convey here.
Let's not forget the capEx advantage - It's not like the Obama organization can afford heavy five or low six figure expenditures on infrastructure when who even knows if they'll be able to raise a series A or will even be around in a year.