When I started working with computers, we loaded punch card decks into a mainframe. It wasn’t long before people realized that the processors in the computer were being underutilized and we started “time sharing”.
With time sharing, you work from a remote machine where you enter data and lay out a run. You then upload it to the main computer system where your job is run. Then you download the results to your local machine. You are charged for data storage and processing time.
After a while, desktop computing became popular and we moved away from time sharing.
Now we have “the cloud”. With the cloud, you work from a remote machine where you enter data and lay out a run. You then upload it to the main computer system where your job is run. Then you download the results to your local machine. You are charged for data storage and processing time.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.