the storage is built so it doesn’t break so easily. I trust AWS engineers more than Mike, no matter how cool Mike is to hang out with. Additionally, if the storage breaks while Mike is on vacation we’re screwed, with the cloud you get a whole team 24/7 on it.

That's easily mitigated just following established standards. Redundancy is cheaper than anything else in the aftermath and documentation can be done easy with automation.

you can prevent data loss with backups or multi-region setups with a few clicks/terraform lines. Try telling the PO that you need to rent datacenter space in Helsinki and Singapore for redundancy…

You don't, you rent rack space in a location far enough away but close enough to get the data in a few hours.

It's neither superior, easier or less risky, it's just a shift in responsibility. And in most cases, it's so expensive that a second or third on site engineer is payed for.