FinOps Is a Sham — Control, Not Cost, Is the Real Problem

Over the past few years — especially during and after the pandemic — I’ve seen more and more organizations go all-in on the public cloud. Some rushed in with a lift-and-shift strategy. Others tried to be more thoughtful. But in the end, most of them landed in the same place: locked into something that was supposed to give them freedom. Enterprises gave up control. They gave up internal skills. All for the promise of flexibility — and now they’re left dealing with rising costs and limited visibility. Everyone’s looking for answers, and FinOps seems to be the popular one. But let’s be clear: FinOps is not a solution. At best, it’s a temporary patch. At worst, it’s another distraction from what really matters.

FinOps doesn’t solve your problems (in the long term)

The first time you try a FinOps tool, it feels like you’ve regained control. Dashboards light up with cost insights. Optimizations appear. For a moment, you believe the problem is solved. But these tools don’t fix your architecture. They don’t give you back control over your stack. And they certainly don’t replace the skills you lost when you moved too much of your infrastructure into someone else’s hands. What they give you is a point-in-time optimization — and a new dependency. Now you need licenses, training, and a FinOps team just to keep the system working. And let’s not forget how we got here. It started with delegation — and then over-delegation. Sound familiar? Think back to the outsourcing wave of the ’90s. Just before the repatriation trend began, and then came the shift to cloud. This is just another turn of the same cycle. FinOps, like outsourcing once was, adds complexity without solving the core issue. And what is the core issue? Skill loss. And data management.

Skills still matter

Cloud began as a way to delegate infrastructure management headaches. But over time, companies started offloading every critical part: provisioning, security, tuning, scaling. Slowly, the teams that knew how to do real infrastructure work left the organization — or changed roles. Today, many ‘cloud-native’ engineers struggle to optimize anything below the abstraction layer. It's easier to add more resources than to optimize what’s already there. Costs rise, while you lose control.

And data management too

Then there’s the data issue — the deeper lock-in that’s often invisible until it’s too late. Without proper data management, you’ve lost control over your most valuable asset. The more you rely on a provider’s stack, the harder it becomes to move your data. Over time, you're not just storing it — you're locked into proprietary services that make it hard to export, repurpose, or relocate. It’s subtle. But once it happens, your options shrink fast. That’s not just technical lock-in — it’s strategic dependency.

How do you get out?

Start by rebuilding skills. If you were about to spend on FinOps, think about redirecting that budget to internal long-term capabilities. People who understand the stack can optimize it — and more importantly, they understand why decisions are being made. Yes, FinOps tools may still play a role — but they’re just that: tools. They can help you track costs. They can’t give you control. Next, look at your data strategy. Make it open, reusable, and accessible. This doesn’t lower your bill next month, but in six months — or when conditions shift — it gives you real flexibility.

Takeaways

A modern, resilient IT strategy starts with two pillars:

• Data — Open, accessible, and under your control. If you can’t move and control it, it’s not really yours.
• Skills — Without them, you lose the ability to adapt, to optimize, or to lead your infrastructure. Who owns the knowledge owns the roadmap.

 Found this relevant?I share weekly thoughts on infrastructure, cloud, data strategy, and digital sovereignty. Subscribe to Control-Alt-Delete to stay in the loop.