alt Hacker News> They want to seem altruistic but want to also be the only provider.
Some people pick the AGPL because the license itself acts like garlic to commons destroying IP vampires and are disappointed that those vampires still found a way to drink their IP milkshake.
Has nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with not wanting to be taken advantage of for free labor and IP by powerful entities that would deny them a glass of water if they were dying from thirst.
Except AWS is not an IP vampire in this case, they are providing a hosting service. There is no conflict between AWS's use and the spirit of the open source license.
The conflict is entirely between the original developer wanting to be the sole service provider and the open source license that lets people host the software themselves. The software as a service business model is the problem here, not AWS hosting.