---
title: Cloud economics. The line items nobody reads.
subtitle: Egress still eats more than half the bill. Five places to start.
author: Sam Beckwith
author_url: https://markwright.app/feed/author/sam-beckwith
published: 2026-04-15T11:00:00.000Z
topic: cloud-economics
claim_type: analysis
secondary_topics: ["infrastructure"]
source: https://markwright.app/feed/cloud-economics-the-line-items-nobody-reads
platform: Markwright
---# Cloud economics. The line items nobody reads.

_Egress still eats more than half the bill. Five places to start._

## Background

This is a fixture post for the cloud-economics topic. It stands in for real creator content during Phase 1 build.

## Three things worth knowing

1. Cost is never just infrastructure. It is people plus infrastructure plus decisions deferred.
2. Budgets rarely fail because of the obvious line item. They fail because of a small one that compounds.
3. The right structure usually exists. It is buried under years of local decisions.

## What to do about it

Write the plan. Test it in a small room first. Kill what does not survive ten days of normal operations. Keep what does.

> Boring is the feature.

See the sources below for canonical references.