The article discusses the importance of cloud development environments (CDEs) in driving platform adoption and improving developer efficiency. It highlights that many platform teams struggle with 'day 2' issues and developer adoption challenges, often overlooking developer experience. CDEs enable platform teams to balance control and freedom for developers by providing direct access to support them through development environments. Key benefits of using a CDE include automating dependencies, access management, extensions, and resources configuration. The article emphasizes that with Gitpod, a developer can maintain their usual access controls while the platform team manages standardization and updates seamlessly, ensuring maximum ROI for platform initiatives.