"Cloud" is a marketing term

"Cloud" is a marketing term, primarily used by people who don't understand that it's a catch-all for the word "connected via a network". I suspect it derived from the '80s and early '90s textbooks describing packet switching, which were trying to teach upper-level protocols (OSI's so-called "presentation layer", mainly), without confusing people with info about the lower layers that actually transport the data.

In other words, some middle manager/marketer "took a class", was convinced he knew it all, and somehow managed to perpetrate this current meme known as "cloud computing".

Those of us who have been around for a while recognize it as it really is ... Basically, it's centralized computing, with higher bandwidth allowing GUI instead of text terminals. Mainframe technology with a glittery interface ... but mainframe technology nonetheless. It's an all-singing, all-dancing, brightly colo(u)red, dinosaur.

Barney, in other words. And targeting the same mental age group, computing-wise.