Why the Cloud Is Failing Us
The cloud was sold as a quick and easy way to get your technology running faster and cheaper. For many businesses, it has turned into confusing bills, tangled systems that depend on each other in unpredictable ways, and downtime you cannot fix yourself.
The "Easy" Setup That Is Not
We all fell for the promise: Let us manage it for you. It sounds great. No servers, no updates, no maintenance. But here is what that really means day to day:
- Mystery problems: When something breaks, you cannot investigate because the details are hidden behind a dashboard.
- Chain reactions: One small change triggers others until your system slows down or stops completely.
- Hidden limits: Resource caps, slowdowns from other customers, and surprise fees appear when you try to scale or move data.
The result: your team spends more time waiting and guessing than improving the product. Instead of solving problems, you are waiting for support to reply.
Bills That Grow While You Sleep
Cloud costs do not just add up, they multiply quietly in the background.
- Data movement fees: Sending files to customers or switching regions can trigger "egress" charges that make flexibility expensive.
- Idle costs: You pay for capacity you rarely use, because "just in case" is the only safe option.
- Add-on creep: Every small service like logging, monitoring, or queues adds a new charge per request or per gigabyte.
If your revenue does not grow faster than these costs, your technology turns into a liability instead of a strength.
When One Giant Trips, Everyone Falls
Every major cloud outage takes down hundreds of businesses at once. If your provider’s login service fails, your customers see downtime and you can only wait for it to be fixed.
Warning signs you are too dependent:
- Your entire operation depends on a single vendor’s status page.
- Fixes mean editing configurations instead of understanding the issue.
- Your team cannot replicate or test failures locally.
What Businesses Actually Need
Most software does not need complex enterprise-scale infrastructure. It needs reliability, not extra layers.
- A solid database like Postgres or MySQL.
- A lightweight web server such as NGINX or HAProxy.
- Simple background jobs and scheduling.
- Backups you can restore yourself in minutes.
Run this on a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS). You will get faster performance, clear control, and predictable monthly costs.
The IndieStack Way: Take Back Control
IndieStack exists to help you understand your own technology, keep ownership of your data, and build systems you can explain in plain English. Complexity should be a choice, not a requirement.
Next: The Indie Infrastructure Mindset — a practical guide to building systems that stay fast, simple, and under your control.