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by marcinzm 2301 days ago
Different companies make money using different approaches and it's perfectly valid to be upset at the approach a particular company is taking. Just because they provide a service doesn't mean they'll try to f* you over at every chance. For some it's bad long term business to do that.

AWS, for example, begins with high prices and then lowers them over time. It costs money but you know the maximum.

Google seems to be grabbing you with cheap prices and then jacking them up when you're committed (google maps is another example offhand). Maybe no on purpose but bad initial pricing and ill-intent have the same impact externally.
2 comments
the_duke 2301 days ago
> AWS, for example, begins with high prices and then lowers them over time. It costs money but you know the maximum.

That's only true for official pricing though.

I know of multiple cases where AWS had initially given significant discounts, only to stop doing so once they believed the customer to be firmly tied to the platform.

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toomuchtodo 2301 days ago
> AWS, for example, begins with high prices and then lowers them over time. It costs money but you know the maximum.

Past performance is no guarantee of future benevolence or reasonable behavior.

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matwood 2301 days ago
> Past performance is no guarantee of future benevolence or reasonable behavior.

Sure, but pushing prices down and eating competitors margin to the benefit of the customer has been Amazon's MO since inception.

Google seems to make a lot of missteps wrt pricing and the cloud. Remember the geo pricing change that put a lot of projects out of business??

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toomuchtodo 2301 days ago
Amazon's bandwidth charges are still extortionate. Have those ever gone down?
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marcinzm 2301 days ago
Same goes for metal, your data center can suddenly increase your prices massively or go bankrupt.
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toomuchtodo 2301 days ago
For sure! That's why I said, "Don't marry yourself to a provider, stay portable". Compute is a commodity, treat it as such.
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marcinzm 2301 days ago
Except that costs time and money, and for many people isn't worth it. Good business is not about eliminating risk but understanding and managing it.

For a startup, the risk of AWS doing something is tiny compared to all other risks so not worth spending effort to mitigate.

For a moderately sized company, true, being on multiple clouds may have an advantage.

For a large company, you get long term contracts with AWS that mitigate the risk.

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