Once again proving that AWS is expensive any way you slice it. Even in today's RAM crisis, an extra 2GB is what, $50? and you probably already have 2GB free since they don't make RAM modules that small.
Just buying a few sticks of RAM isn't hosting data in that RAM indefinitely. Its not the same as what S3 (or similar services) gets you.
What is your datacenter costs for multiple different buildings (assuming colocation/office space)? How much are you going to pay for the electricity? How much are you paying for networking? How much is rent for each U of server? How much do you spend on payroll to have knowledgeable people to manage it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Suddenly its not just a one-time $50 payment.
Maybe you don't actually need all of that, just some slices of some of that whole stack of things. Probably true in many situations. But just looking at it as a couple of sticks of RAM is not a like-for-like comparison.
I'm not arguing the cloud is cheap. You can definitely go cheaper and choose your own cost optimizations when managing the hardware yourself, deciding what is actually a necessary cost and what isn't. I totally agree AWS overchages for a lot of what they do; they price their stuff at a premium because they know businesses will pay it. But hosting 2GB of stuff in RAM reliably and indefinitely to anywhere near the guarantees of S3 is going to be a lot more than just a single $50 payment.
Server? What server? Suddenly now I need to also buy a server? Sounds like quite a bit more than $50!
Things always seem free when you've already spent the money. It doesn't change the fact you spent quite a bit of money, you're just failing to account for it properly.
The standard here was I've just got 2GB of data I need to reliably store someplace. Its an expensive assumption I've got multiple servers in multiple physically separate buildings already lying around.
