The time when you have 2 micro instances is the best time to implement terraform. You can do it in 5min, existing infra is obvious, and you likely can explain it to 2 other people and be done.
Once you're established, growing, and accumulating features it will take weeks/months. (And if you need a duplicate environment for staging, how many clicks will it take?)
I thought the same thing, but after reading what the comment said again it wasn't a "use terraform or don't" story, it was terraform vs "import prototype".
Generally for most resources, I feel like I can write terraform just as fast as I could create the resources in the console.
Probably not a good example, but I agree with the sentiment that you have to prioritize the business.
And it depends on existing skillsets too. I did a recent project where I almost certainly would have used Terraform if I already knew how. But the choice was between "learn Terraform" and "do this in a Makefile," and the "learn Terraform" was clearly crazy overhead at the time.
Once you're established, growing, and accumulating features it will take weeks/months. (And if you need a duplicate environment for staging, how many clicks will it take?)