Serious post: the two reasons that middle management care more about labour costs vs server costs are as follows.
It's much easier to justify tech expenses to upper management than it is to justify salary increases. This is because even if middle management is tech smart (unlikely but happens sometimes) their bosses definitely won't be. All those people see are a spreadsheet with % increases compared to last year, where one figure is 'that fellow down the hall who sits at a computer all day' and the other figure is 'money we pay Amazon so all our shit works'. Getting gouged by another business is familiar territory; big raises for employees isn't.
Two years down the line, you've spaffed a load of money up the wall. If you've given everyone raises, you might have to cut shareholder profits. If you're wasting all that money on AWS, you can always look to negotiate a reduction or switch services. (It doesn't really work out that way in practice, but from a tech-illiterate perspective that seems like a more palatable option).
Serious post: the two reasons that middle management care more about labour costs vs server costs are as follows.
It's much easier to justify tech expenses to upper management than it is to justify salary increases. This is because even if middle management is tech smart (unlikely but happens sometimes) their bosses definitely won't be. All those people see are a spreadsheet with % increases compared to last year, where one figure is 'that fellow down the hall who sits at a computer all day' and the other figure is 'money we pay Amazon so all our shit works'. Getting gouged by another business is familiar territory; big raises for employees isn't.
Two years down the line, you've spaffed a load of money up the wall. If you've given everyone raises, you might have to cut shareholder profits. If you're wasting all that money on AWS, you can always look to negotiate a reduction or switch services. (It doesn't really work out that way in practice, but from a tech-illiterate perspective that seems like a more palatable option).