This is such a strange take - do you not remember 2020 when everyone started working from home? And today, when huge numbers of people continue to work from home? Most of that would be literally impossible without the cloud - it has been a necessary component in reshaping work and all the downstream effects related to values of office real estate, etc.

Literally a society-changing technology.

No way. Small to medium sized businesses don't need physical servers anymore. Which is most businesses. It's been a huge boon to most people. No more running your exchange servers on site. Most things that used to be on-prem software have moved to the cloud and integrate with mobile devices. You don't need some nerd sitting around all day in case you need to fix your on-prem industry specific app.

I have no idea how you can possibly shrug off the cloud as not that beneficial.

> the end user benefits are far more limited than predicted

How have you judged the end user benefits of the cloud? I don't agree personally - the cloud has enabled most modern tech startups and all of those have been super beneficial to me.

i feel like a common consumer fallacy is that, because you don't interact with a technology in your day-to-day life, it leads you to conclude that the technology is useless.

I guarantee you that the cloud has benefitted you in some way, even though you aren't aware of the benefits of the cloud.