Why Your Choice of Cloud Provider Matters…

The Gist

Over the years, we’ve been asked many times why we don’t work with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform.

Not by you, of course, dear reader—we’ve only just met.

The long and short of it, is that we’re a small ragtag bunch of whatsits and whatnots, trying to ‘vote with our money’, as it were.

Social responsibility, that kind of malarkey. Care to find out why we vote no on the big three? Grand. Then let’s discuss why.

A Spot of Legal Gibberywhatsit

If you’re neither easily offended nor planning to take us to court, feel free to skip this bit, dear reader. Otherwise, or if you simply enjoy a good disclaimer, read on.

Disclaimer: This article is an opinion piece. We rather strongly believe in our opinions, but we feel we can’t convey them without a touch of satire, hyperbole, and phrases that might give some a giggle—and others a frown.

Thus, we need to protect ourselves from those that might get offended, as they are about to receive the bit of snot, we aim to flick at them.

Sorry about that, dear reader, but it had to be done.

Have a biscuit.

A Smidgen of Perspective

As we likely all know in one form or another by now, ‘cloud computing’ is the means by which our global infrastructure functions these days. It has transformed the way both businesses and governments operate. If you find yourself not quite knowing, or tempted to gracefully hide that you’re not sure—then perhaps give our cloud computing explained article a read first.

When used effectively, cloud computing can greatly improve efficiency and help manage costs far more effectively than traditional IT infrastructures. Thus, it is no mystery as to why this revolutionary technology became the de facto standard. It is worth mentioning, however, that when not used effectively, it may very well make the whole of one’s mortgage—seem like the receipt of a not unreasonably sized lunch. At least where commercial cloud platforms are concerned.

Cloud computing—like all computing—is fickle, and quite expensive for those providing the infrastructure. Thus, it was only a handful of companies in the early days of cloud computing that got all the attention—and all the coin. This allowed them to grow, expand, and ultimately become the only providers to be able to offer services at scale. To be fair, the earliest of cloud providers are either no longer with us, or have since been usurped by a bigger entity. Others just found themselves late to the party.

What most don’t realise, however, is that it was in no small part public funds, or rather taxpayer money, that enabled that to happen. One would think that governments maintain their own IT infrastructures—and simply upgraded them as new technologies and paradigms come into play. That, it turns out…is quite the contrary.

Had most governments chosen to start their own—and therefore accountable—infrastructure providers, or even opted for a ‘pure’ infrastructure provider, we wouldn’t have got our knickers in a twist. But as it stands, they’ve made choices that, in effect, use taxpayer money—to grow empires. Empires that expand through public funds at the back end, while acting most questionably at the front end. At the consumer-facing end in particular.

Bear with us, dear reader, we shall expand on that shortly.

Amazon

It could be said that, in their unrelenting mission to economise and optimise, Amazon is the progenitor of cloud computing as we know it today. They didn’t invent all the ingredients, not by any stretch of the imagination—but they did turn them into dishes. Ready to order, fit for consumption.

It could also be said that Amazon Web Services accounts for anywhere from 62 to 74% of its operating income—depending on which source one takes most seriously. That’s a rather large portion of the pie for a ‘retailer’, wouldn’t you say, dear reader?¹

We are of course looking at operating income, as that is what allows for corporate acquisitions and investments. Amazon’s retail division has historically contributed significantly less to its operating income, despite its high turnover.

Which raises the question—could Amazon have grown into the behemoth it is today without Amazon Web Services? To us, that seems unlikely—if we look at the percentage over time.¹

Given how much of Amazon’s operating income comes from Amazon Web Services, it’s fair to say that all those corporate acquisitions—and indeed the personal wealth of Mr Bezos—have been more than a little dependent on it.

Let’s just say AWS instead of Amazon Web Services hereafter, shall we, dear reader? We’re getting weary of typing the whole blasted name all the time. Ahem, sorry about that, where were we… right, AWS.

By its own admission, Amazon services over 7500 government agencies on its AWS platform, in the US alone. The UK seems to be migrating quite a few of their departments as well². One can only fathom how many government agencies world-wide are giving their IT budgets to Amazon, and how much of that 62% to 74% is coming from taxpayer money.

It is safe to assume that it is substantial indeed. So, what does Amazon do with its government contracts?

For starters, Amazon seems to underpay³ and overwork⁴ its personnel, seems to have a tendency to thwart attempts at unionisation⁵ and appears to put the health and well-being of its workers at risk⁶.

Amazon charges hefty fees to sellers to ‘cover costs⁷’, yet seems to favour its own products (under various brands) in its search results⁸.

Speaking of fees, and their consequences… Amazon stipulates that sellers need to store inventory in its warehouses, if they wish to meet the requirements for ‘Prime Eligibility’. Said eligibility also requires sellers to pay expensive storage fees, which creates significant pressure to move stock quickly. With mounting cost, it becomes cheaper for sellers to dispose of inventory rather than hang on to it.

As a result, reports have come in that Amazon destroys vast amounts of unsold stock every year, in the name of price and inventory management⁹. Perfectly usable goods…wasted. Items that could have served those in need.

We, for one, would love to examine the public health and environmental impacts of this practice. But as we can’t, we do raise the question: Is Amazon purposely encouraging the infinite growth paradigm—the essence of our waste-driven society?

Looks like that to us, dear reader. It must be said however, that Amazon isn’t the only enterprise with practices such as these. It isn’t an illegal practice either, unfortunately. But given their vast size, it stands to reason that the scale at which they execute this practice must be quite vast by extension. With their sizeable profits, couldn’t they give up a billion or two to handle things differently? Couldn’t they use their vast resources to set things up a little different in supply chain practices? You know, be an actual leader?

They did make a pledge to look into it and make changes. Sorry to say however, that we don’t put much faith in that. Not without same major specifics, benchmarks and time-frames. A company with a historically ’thin’ interpretation of ‘social responsibility’, will likely stay the course at the fringes of legality for as long as they can. Pure speculation, cynicism, or common sense? You be the judge, dear reader.

Right, with that out of the way, whose up for a hearty meal of micro-plastics?

No?

Nice big dollop of PFAS or ‘forever chemicals’ anyone?

Amazon uses its coin to acquire more and more companies and start-ups to fortify its position as ‘market leader’¹⁰. Mr Bezos even acquired a key news outlet¹¹, and started a space travel company. Personally of course, those two don’t count as Amazon acquisitions. But it’s fairly obvious where the funds came from.

Amazon has even been accused of investing in start-ups, only to develop rather strikingly similar products¹². No court ruling has confirmed that yet, but several former competitors—now pushing up the daisies—might beg to differ.

Amazon also seems to have caught a nasty case of ’tax-avoid-itis’. You know the one¹³. The affliction that forces those that suffer from it to skirt all social responsibility—by using every trick in the book to avoid paying taxes. Legally, but most despicably so.

The main issue with ’tax-avoid-itis’ is that it affects those who don’t suffer from it the most… It undermines public resources, widens inequality, and fuels economic disparity¹⁴.

Oh, and if you haven’t heard of that affliction, dear reader, then perhaps you’re more familiar with ‘power-hungry-megelomaniatis’. It’s quite similar. It seems to target executives and major shareholders in particular. Poor things. We’d give them a biscuit, but we’re worried that they might spread the disease to our favourite manufacturer.

Mr Bezos caught a case of ’tax-avoid-itis’ himself as well¹⁵. Or did he get it first, and then passed it on to Amazon? We’ll probably never know.

There is more, so much more, but we think we’ve made our point. This is an article on ‘why your choice of cloud provider matters’, after all. So, for now, we’ll begrudgingly overlook Amazon’s ever expanding ‘walled garden’ of exclusive content, and its velvet-yet-iron grip on the publishing industry.

Cruel irony, isn’t it though? Amazon’s employees see their taxes flow back to their employer—who, of course pays next to nothing. Not to mention the fact that your taxes, dear reader, directly contribute to the growth of this company. While we don’t know how much exactly, we feel that a single penny would already be too much. Unless they do a complete 180, of course, and become a champion for all things good and proper.

As it stands, that’s a ’no’ from us on Amazon Web Services and in fact, Amazon as a whole. We reckon Rowan Atkinson said it best when referring to people of this nature. Ahem…

Amazon, we spurn you, as we would, a rabid dog.

Oh, and naturally that includes Anthropic AI (Claude), Audible, Blink, Goodreads, IMDb, MGM Film & Television, One Medical, Twitch, Wholefoods Market, Woot and many more…and counting.

Microsoft

One can always trust Microsoft to be Microsoft. For readers in the know, we comfortably accept your heart-warming ‘hmm-hmm’. For our other readers, we shall happily and most ‘stress-ball-relievingly’, divulge the details.

Microsoft: The story of the little fish that swam beneath the belly of a great white shark, convincing it—it was there to ‘serve’. But the little fish was clever—defied the laws of commerce, er…physics and became a shark itself. It devoured the competition (or forced them to become little fishies swimming under its own belly), and evolved into a Megalodon. Then it met the Kraken that was Amazon and they nibbled each other to bits. The End.

Hmm? Oh, sorry, dear reader. We were daydreaming for a bit.

In the real world, most fish don’t have a way to elevate their station in life. We don’t think at least…but then we don’t get to swim much. But sharks like Microsoft—under the iron grip of Mr Gates—have proven unstoppable. Let’s have a look at that in more detail.

For starters—like most surviving tech giants—Microsoft started its life as a company that merely repackaged or re-implemented other people’s work, or ideas. Such as implementing—not inventing—the BASIC programming language on many early microcomputers.

With IBM’s help, Microsoft managed to take control of the home computer revolution. Digital Research Inc, and it’s CP/M operating system was the leader at the time. Microsoft acquired and tweaked 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products—a product that effectively looked, felt and indeed operated very much like CP/M—without permission¹⁶. When Digital Research threatened legal action, IBM settled out of court—only to ensure CP/M’s ’not-very-likely-to-survive-itis’ by offering CP/M at a much higher price than MS/PC-DOS¹⁷.

Fun fact: Mary Gates, Bill Gates’ mother, got Microsoft their start with IBM, while she sat on the board of ‘United Way of King County’ with then-chairman of IBM, John Opel¹⁸.

Self-made billionaire indeed. Some might argue that it took talented manoeuvring of the ball. Perhaps, but having mother dearest ensure that he could be near the ball—at the right time, in the right place—certainly didn’t hurt matters. Eh, dear reader?

After IBM lost control of the PC standard, Microsoft used ‘vaporware’ and ‘fear, uncertainty, and doubt’ marketing and other legally dubious tactics. This, to undermi…give a proper challenge to competitors in the race to implement a Graphical User Interface on early PCs. Its own ‘interface manager’ and later ‘Windows’ line of products never came close to any of the promises Microsoft had made¹⁹.

Microsoft ‘urged’ PC manufacturers into bundling a DOS or Windows license (depending on era) with every machine²⁰. This fortified their monopo…’leadership position’. The result of this strategy is infamous as the ‘Microsoft Tax’ on PCs. It also made it very unlikely to avoid—at a very crucial time—that the ‘Microsoft way’, became the first thing many newcomers associated with computing. It is the way that most people by far are familiar with. Quite a few of which have government jobs.

In the mid-1990s, Microsoft appeared to be withholding crucial information about the functioning of Windows (the APIs), to bolster its applications division. Various 3rd party software developers would assert that they had great difficulty to get their software to function properly²¹.

Microsoft’s own software seemed not to have any such issues. This quite likely helped Microsoft become the dominant player in the word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and collaboration software markets. But it must be said that it is certainly not the only reason. Although it pains us to admit, Microsoft Excel was (and still is) actually a fairly good product. Though given the social impact in giving Microsoft money for it, we choose not to. As it stands, we wouldn’t consider a version given to us for free. Nay, we couldn’t even be paid to use it.

Microsoft also purposely implemented a ‘pollu…less functional’ version of Java that didn’t seem to support cross-platform compatibility very well²¹.

Those last bits and bobs, are major components as to why government agencies around the world seem to be flocking to Microsoft Azure as their cloud provider… Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange and the more recent addition of Microsoft Teams are key components in the master class on vendor lock…er…eco-system design that Microsoft has taught the world.

Microsoft integrated their web browser directly into Windows, ensuring it would become the default web browser. This was found to be in violation of antitrust laws²¹, and seemed to have helped competitor Netscape to cease existing as a company. In addition, by refusi…‘being moody’ about emerging web standards, Microsoft seems to have had a less than positive effect on web technologies…for quite a few years.

Indeed, Microsoft appears to have been quite actively ‘moody’ about open standards—in favour of their own proprietary standards²⁰. Microsoft also took two existing open standards in user management—Kerberos and LDAP—and tweaked them a bit. It then ’encouraged’ their version to become the ’new’ industry standard: ‘Active Directory²²’.

This, dear reader, is yet another reason why Azure is ‘popular’ among both governments and businesses. One seemingly can’t use one Microsoft product effectively, without the other.

Microsoft also appears to have actively been maintaining a patent protection ‘incentive’—implying legal action against users of Free and Open Source Software²³. They appear to have relaxed their approach on this somewhat in recent years, but it remains to be a proverbial ‘ace up their sleeve’. You know, deep pockets, the potential for endless litigation, scare tactics and whatnot. The real reason—for this newly found ‘state of relaxation’—is no doubt due the amount of money that Microsoft now makes by making much of that software available on its Azure platform²⁴.

Microsoft appears to think it is fair to gather telemetry data in their Windows line of products, and send it to their servers. Neatly tied to a Microsoft account. The signing up for which is difficult for the average user to avoid²⁵. While both can be avoided by those in the know, it is far from obvious. Indeed, one has to look for it, and then start digging for answers.

It looks like Microsoft doesn’t much mind increasing e-waste…by purposely excluding perfectly good hardware from running Windows 11. Planned obsolesc…hmm, what? Moving on.

It does offer an alternative to those that are unable to upgrade their hardware, by requiring maintenance fees for extended support for its soon-to-be retired Windows 10 line of products²⁶. Said hardware can run Windows 11 perfectly of course, but Microsoft seems to have gotten weary of taking slightly older hardware into account.

Microsoft has used its vast fortunes for quite a few corporate acquisitions over the years, fortifying its position as ’lead innovator’²⁷.

It acquired Github, and decided to expand its free tier. Which seemed quite generous. Then it appeared to be looking for ways to monetise its purchase. Perhaps not, but possibly related: it trained its ‘AI Copilot’ on the code of free and open-source projects. Considered by some to be the illicit exploitation of the work done by developers working on open, but very much—licensed works²⁸. No court judgements, just an observation. Although attempts were made.

It acquired numerous game developers, and in so doing, gained control of some of the most beloved game IPs. Then they saw fit to do a bit of workforce pruning²⁹. Almost as though control is more important to them, than creativity.

Microsoft appears to be favouring a subscription model wherever it can. A model that—many have come to believe—ensures users pay more for products than they otherwise would, while making it more difficult to ‘get out’ as it were. Not by obfuscating the unsubscribe process, none of that funny business. No need, when the investment in time and procedural dependency makes migration seem like a pipe dream. Unforeseen side effect, or grand plan?

‘We want to empower every person on the planet’ says Nadella, the company’s new CEO³⁰. Yes indeed, that’s what an increasing stack of subscriptions, hardware sent to the landfill before its time, and deepening vendor lock-i…co-system make us feel like. ‘Empowered’.

Just like Amazon, Microsoft suffers from a rather persistent case of ’tax-avoid-itis’ as well³¹. Funny how ‘Big Tech’ all seem so susceptible to it. Although the symptoms and results are quite similar, the workings of the disease can be somewhat different. Puerto Rico, Double-Irish-and-Dutch-sandwich, Luxembourg Papers³².

Bill Gates seems to have suffered from both ’tax-avoid-itis’ and ‘power-hungry-megelomaniatis’ for quite a while³³. Poor fellow. He may also be the best living example of why we should have a legal definition and list of requirements—before one is allowed to claim the title of ‘philanthropist’…

Putting one’s money into a foundation, only for one of the major activities of that foundation—to be expanding its fortune—should at the very least raise a few eyebrows. Investing a sizeable part of said fortune into a questionable company such as Coca-Cola³⁴, and then ‘donating’ small sums that end up fortifying those investments—doesn’t look like philanthropy in our book³⁵. But it does seem like a master class in gaining political favour, and fortitude in managing such a severe case of ’tax-avoid-its’. Not illegal, by any means. But philanthropy? Cough…nonsen…cough… Sorry dear reader, we really do need to get that checked.

Microsoft appeared to have allowed Bill Gates to whitewa…launder? — his reputation by having all parties concerned claim: ‘he is no longer involved with Microsoft decisions’. Which, quite hilariously, current management mistakenly undermined, by admitting that Mr Gates is to this day consulted heavily for critical decisions³⁶. That, was one of the biggest ‘We knew it! We knew it!’ moments of our lives.

Indeed, dear reader, we don’t get out much.

Still, it makes us wonder about Mr Gates’ true stance on environmental protection. Given the Windows 11 debacle we mentioned earlier.

The list goes on and on, but that is beyond the scope of this article. As we see it, Microsoft will not rest until it has a controlling interest in any and all things digital. They’d probably start figuring out ways to squeeze the last remaining drops out of all things analogue, if they ever succeeded.

Again, in large part because of tax payer money.

Large doesn’t cut it though. Gargantuan? Phenomenal? In any case: Big. We’ll even go as far as to say: Very big. The amount of taxpayer money that Microsoft must rake in… All those Windows desktops, laptops, and servers at government agencies around the world… All those Office subscriptions, and Azure contracts… There’s even a ‘Windows for Warships’³⁷…

Now there’s a ‘blue screen of death’ for you.

So unless Microsoft were to cease any and all API obfuscation, open-source any and all libraries required to facilitate true cross-platform compatibility, along with actively contributing to the latter, and demonstrating a genuine willingness to rectify a long list of other grievances—that’ll be another resounding ’no’ from us.

So, again, as it stands, that’s a ’no’ from us on Microsoft Azure—and indeed, Microsoft as a whole, dear reader. We’d sooner strip naked, and dive head-first, into the most piranha-ridden rivers of the Amazon—covered in fish bait.

Oh, and that includes Activision-Blizzard (Games), Bethesda (Games), Github, OpenAI, and others…and counting.

Google

So, where do we stand on Google? Well, dear reader, not quite as harshly as the other two. We wouldn’t be ourselves, however—if we didn’t have a bone to pick, now, would we?

Google is so very effective at giving us goodies to detract from…what is yet to be discussed. They gave us open-source versions of Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, the Go programming language, and many more. They even gave us Kubernetes, a game-changer in the realm of IT infrastructure management.

Some are a tad niche, so don’t feel shame if you didn’t catch those, dear reader.

How to interpret these gifts however, begs the question… Amazon’s never given anyone anything…except fewer and fewer options to shop around. Microsoft, has certainly not given much either—at least nothing that didn’t rope…er…incentivise people into their ecosystem in one way or another³⁸.

Oh wait, is that perhaps what Google is doing as well?

Well, we can’t deny that some of Google’s gifts are genuinely useful, especially for people active in the IT space. In some ways they could be considered a means to guarantee free workforce training, and obtaining free contributions to the development of key technologies. Not unlike Microsoft’s ‘gifts’. Nothing inherently wrong with that, provided the standards in question are truly open.

But unlike Microsoft’s gifts—they don’t seem as much to be designed to bring people into the fold. At least where the IT space is concerned. The ones intended for common use however, are quite the contrary.

Android

Useful. It’s even open-source…well, the foundations are at least. Google’s Pixel line of phones even allow installing ‘De-Googled’ versions of Android on it, without much fuss. So far, so good.

That is of course, until one tries to install a banking app. Some of these won’t work unless the device is ‘Play Services Certified’. A certification that is only ever granted, if said services are in full control of the device—with access to all manner of juicy data³⁹. Thou art the product dear reader, and Android is the bait. Its reliance on Google’s special sauce, is also very much an effective monopo…mechanism to determine the future of Android and all related components⁴⁰.

Chrome OS

An operating system that was created solely for the purpose of working with a web browser. Indeed, that does sound mildly interesting. But then Google saw fit to ‘Frankenstein’ it into a messy hybrid of Chrome OS, GNU/Linux proper and Android. This does however, explain what we were thinking.

Why does this thing exist? Why-why-Why? Any GNU/Linux specialist worth their salt, can configure a setup that mimics Chrome OS functionality. At time of release—but even more so now. As we see it, Chrome OS can only be explained as an early attempt by Google to try out the ‘Microsoft effect’. (Microsoft at the time still, not fully having figured out ‘how to make the most’ of the internet.) An attempt at end-to-end control of the user experience, perhaps?

Sorry dear reader, but users—or indeed fans—of this particular platform, should perhaps receive a slap. Delivered meticulously…with enough force, to ensure their first offspring—are destined to be born dizzy.

The Chrome browser

It is so deeply entwined with Google, that even the open-source version—is more desperate to phone home⁴¹, than a proverbial party animal stranded at an insurance seminar. In other words, as far as open-source goodness goes, unless one has deep pockets or a rather comprehensive set of skills, it’s a bit iffy. To the point that we prefer to use Firefox instead, to be honest.

Defenders of the technology, but not the aftermath: Enjoy the process of installing an ad-blocker on ‘Ungoogled Chromium’. Not you of course, dear reader, you’re a clever biscuit. Not that it matters much, as Google is actively trying to…‘disincentivise’ the use of ad-blockers in all versions of its browser⁴².

But, they say ‘Don’t Be Evil’…

That part of their motto, has likely been tested to the point that even they themselves got uncomfortable looking at it. They therefore removed it, in favour of something dipped in a lawyer’s tea.

Which finally brings us to Google’s services…

Well, ’nothing to see here people, move along’ seemed to be the case for a while… And then ‘Uncle Sam’, finally seemed to get a tad cross⁴³. Enough to give us a few more footnotes and links at least. Tally-ho, Uncle Sam.

Let’s crack on.

Let’s start by considering what Gmail does for Google. It appears to store a list of purchases that users have made⁴⁴. Said list can be edited—though only one item at a time. Perhaps, they haven’t had the time to update the user interface. Who knows with such things?

Regardless… Why would that matter, dear reader?

Well, because along with having read the emails of Gmail users in the past, it seemed to have allowed them to build psychological profiles of their users as well⁴⁵. Coupled with Google’s seemingly frequent collaboration with various government agencies⁴⁶, we say that…makes us nervous. In fact, dear reader, downright jittery⁴⁷.

They did promise to stop doing that in 2017⁴⁸. We wager that probably means that after 13 years of the practice, that Google no longer needs to do so—having perfected its predictive algorithms since then.

It would appear that Google doesn’t agree when users try to opt out of tracking⁴⁹. Indeed, even their smart devices seem to be ‘watching over you’, after they tuck you to bed⁵⁰.

Google also seems not to put much stock into the fight for democracy, in non-Western nations⁵¹. In addition, while Google appears to have excellent data retention on its users—the same does not seem to be the case for its internal dealings⁵². It looks like Google can get comfortably assert the latter, while we’ve never heard of anyone auditing the former.

Google appears to enjoy playing a bit of chess—dabbling in a spot of corporate-government lobbying⁵³. Can’t have laws that protect consumer privacy, can we, dear reader? That would undermine the corporate bottom-line.

Speaking of bottom-line, they’ve suggested a new easy-to-use and universal Digital Rights Management system. Google humbly submits that they are willing to perform custodial duties. Along with design and implementation⁵⁴.

Google has apparently become so ubiquitous, that it would appear that they don’t believe altering search results would make any real difference⁵⁵. Indeed, Google doesn’t seem to prioritise indexing sites within a reasonable time-frame these days. Signing up to the search console and requesting an index, is met with slow response. Not only that, registering that domain doesn’t detract Google from hurting a site’s exposure. By that we mean that it doesn’t stop search from recommending—and indeed displaying—results for an alternative search term. Not until the existence of the word or domain has become undeniable, despite having had its exposure subverted.

To be fair, that also applies to Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and with it, sites like Duckduckgo. We’d have gone with ‘DaffyDaffyDuck’ perhaps, has more of a ring to it.

In addition, instead of being a good Google—that is a functional search engine, purposed with indexing the worlds sites and information—they now appear to have adopted a different approach. It looks like they prioritise enticing users to stay on their site, instead of encouraging them to visit others⁵⁶. Forgive us if you will, but we are sceptical about the added value of AI generated summaries, dear reader.

There is more, dear reader, so much more. But we have come to believe that the boogeyman has a name. At least one of his family members appears to have one. Or, should we say three of them do? Boogeymen then.

We think we’ve made our point. But only begrudgingly—have we limited ourselves in the attempt. Unless Google resumes focus on providing the best possible, unbiased search in favour of getting voices heard, becomes a defender of user privacy and addresses a long list of other grievances, we again have to say ’no’.

So, again, and for the last time in this article: As it stands, that’s a ’no’ from us on Google Cloud Platform—and indeed, Google, in so far as we can manage, dear reader. Even typing that last bit fills us with paranoia to be honest. Where do we take this one… Ahem…‘No thanks Google, we’d rather not’.

Blast… we forgot… As with the others, Google also seems to tragically suffer from tax-avoid-itis. Something, Eric Schmidt—Google’s chairman from 2001 to 2011—made memorable by saying that he is ‘very proud’ of the company’s tax structure⁵⁷. It’s called capitalism, he said. Is it really? We say.

Oh…hey Google, fancy seeing you here…Mr Bot is it? Er…toodlepip!

The Alternatives

Now that we’ve discussed why we don’t do business with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform, we’d like to press the following. Integration with these three, will not be worked on by us in any of our articles, tutorials, guides or (Free and Open Source) solutions. So don’t ask. No-no-no, teacakes aren’t going to change anything.

So whom do we suggest?

Well, for our proverbial two pence: Vultr, Digital Ocean, and Linode seem like a reasonable start. They are all ‘pure’ infrastructure providers, as far as we can tell. That might change, and we’ll happily add them to the list of do-nots if they misbehave. But for now, we are compromisingly confident in our assessment.

None of these have monopol..market custodianship. None of these use vast sums of tax payer money (by receiving, avoiding, or both) to establish empires, nor do they have…shall we say ‘diffuse’ business models.

Each provides excellent tools and services, while maintaining reasonable pricing. Sure, they have a smidgen of honeypot and other sticky surfaces that they wouldn’t mind you buying into, but it’s entirely optional.

Lucky for you, dear reader, you have us. We shall guide you to copy-paste your way, and negotiate the best deals, while facilitating your escape. Like an eel, if need be.

Wait…was that a plug?

Yes dear reader, but a Free and Open-Source one. Don’t begrudge us that…no?

The Takeaway

We’ll be honest, writing an article such as this is a tad unnerving. Bit like suggesting a trio of tigers to brush their teeth before digging in.

Will we make friends…or foes?

Some readers may feel we’ve popped their shiny new balloon. To those we say, sorry dear reader, we’ll get you a new one. A better one.

But in knowing a thing, and knowing we might share that thing…should we not try? We feel that the risk of alienation, or even, retaliation—is acceptable, as long as we got to share our notion.

A notion of why we don’t do business with dangerous predators, and why you shan’t see any integration with them here. Perhaps also, why your choice of cloud provider matters.

Yours,

Digerty

P.S. Although for staunch reasons we don’t engage with commercial platforms ourselves, please do share this article wherever you can, if you liked it. It will help us grow, and spread the word. Links are right there. Have a click, or long-press/touch for you fancy folk.

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