I don't see why AWS is alone in "Tier 1" on a list that claims to prioritize standard technology and outsourcing undifferentiated heavy lifting.
The post gives an example of switching from self-hosted MongoDB onto AWS DynamoDB. But AWS DynamoDB is proprietary technology, not standard. Amazon doesn't even claim that DynamoDB is standard; they argue that DynamoDB is the best in the world, worth the premium in price. It's not at all "undifferentiated heavy lifting."
It sounds like they made the right decision with DynamoDB, but they did it by violating the pillars of their own philosophy, adopting a differentiated proprietary solution for their scalability problems.
The post gives an example of switching from self-hosted MongoDB onto AWS DynamoDB. But AWS DynamoDB is proprietary technology, not standard. Amazon doesn't even claim that DynamoDB is standard; they argue that DynamoDB is the best in the world, worth the premium in price. It's not at all "undifferentiated heavy lifting."
It sounds like they made the right decision with DynamoDB, but they did it by violating the pillars of their own philosophy, adopting a differentiated proprietary solution for their scalability problems.