Dozens of small companies (ranging from a couple of people to a couple dozen) rely on me to decide and direct their tech stacks; I always suggest something other than Amazon even where Amazon is suggested first by them; the vast majority defer to my judgement.
I think I'm not only doing them a service by avoiding lock-in to AWS specific "stuff", but also our industry and society at large by maintaining software diversity and openness. Often they also save a nontrivial amount of money by not using AWS (RDS has been particularly egregious).
Just making suggestions (rather than demands or whatever) is very powerful, particularly if they respect you and there is some solid logic behind your suggestion.
I think I'm not only doing them a service by avoiding lock-in to AWS specific "stuff", but also our industry and society at large by maintaining software diversity and openness. Often they also save a nontrivial amount of money by not using AWS (RDS has been particularly egregious).
Just making suggestions (rather than demands or whatever) is very powerful, particularly if they respect you and there is some solid logic behind your suggestion.