> Cloud is insanely expensive and inefficient.

Depends on your metrics. Say you're an early startup - short on man-hours and bare-metal skills, with backers who think that "cloud" sounds fast, cool, and scalable.

Or your a VP at some big company - with C-suite mandate to deliver Cool Solutions ASAP, whatever the cost...but a byzantine mess of middle managers between you and the actual engineers. Deciding "we'll use CloudCo" can rob your steaming heap of PHB's of a lot of opportunities to make bad decisions and drag things out.