[abtinf]

> Are they still extorting customers...

That is a contradiction in terms.

According to the OED:

Extort means to "obtain (something) by force, threats, or other unfair means."

Customer means "a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business"

Thus, extortion is a coercive relationship--we call the target of extortion a victim, not a customer.

The relationship of a vendor and customer is voluntary.

[koheripbal]

It's nice to see that the increasing amount of hyperbole here isn't impacting everyone.

[abtinf]

It's not just hyperbole, it's grossly unjust.

Amazon quite rightly charge a higher price for some portions of AWS--transparently, up front, with tools to assess usage and estimate fees beforehand--because they created a product that many organizations believe provides extraordinary value.

And for the sin of earning a profit through voluntary trade, a vocal minority of HN damns them every single time AWS is mentioned. Every time we let this evil behavior go unchallenged, all productive individuals are diminished.

[TechBro8615]

Wait, are you saying it’s grossly unjust to criticize the pricing of Amazon’s cloud product?

Just to be clear: Amazon is not paying a variable cost for how many bits are transferred over their wires. And the standard, prior to cloud, and still in colocation, was to charge for capacity (i.e. $/gbps) rather than transfer (i.e $/gb). They are making massive, massive profits by this pricing arrangement. The cost of sustaining 100 gbps transfer for 30 days on Amazon is orders of magnitude higher than paying for one month of 100 gbps of IP transit.

They’ve normalized a pricing structure that is disconnected from any actual cost basis. You’re free to pay for it, but it’s quite amusing to say criticizing that is unjust.

[pests]

"[...]disconnected from any actual cost basis[...]"

Not everything is priced based on the cost of it's inputs. In this case it seems to be what the market will bear.

[sudosysgen]

Which in this case is exorbitant and is something that we should oppose. Pricing as much as the market will bear is not good for consumers, and in some cases is a red-mark of market failure (not in this one, as of yet).

[rumanator]

> Pricing as much as the market will bear is not good for consumers

To be fair, that's how all products are priced in general: production cost defines the lower bound and what customers are willing to pay defines the upper bound, and the goal is to maximize what the customer pays.

[thayne]

The grandparent's argument is that AWS is extorting the customer to remain a customer by making the cost of moving data out of AWS prohibitevly high. I don't think it is actual extortion (at least legally), since the egress prices are public, and you could argue if the customer had done due diligence they would have known the price when becoming a customer in the first place.

But if they had changed the price after a customer became sufficiently invested in AWS, that would be using "unfair means", to obtain the customer's continued business.

[x3blah]

   220 pan.alephnull.com dictd 1.12.1/rf on Linux 4.4.0-1-amd64 <auth.mime> <[e-mail]>
   150 15 definitions retrieved
   151 "Extortion" gcide "The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
   Extortion \Ex*tor"tion\, n. [F. extorsion.]
      1. The act of extorting; the act or practice of wresting
         anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any
         undue exercise of power; undue exaction; overcharge.
         [1913 Webster]
   
      2. (Law) The offense committed by an officer who corruptly
         claims and takes, as his fee, money, or other thing of
         value, that is not due, or more than is due, or before it
         is due. --Abbott.
         [1913 Webster]
   
      3. That which is extorted or exacted by force.
   
      Syn: Oppression; rapacity; exaction; overcharge.
           [1913 Webster]
   .
   151 "extortion" wn "WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)"
   extortion
       n 1: an exorbitant charge
       2: unjust exaction (as by the misuse of authority); "the
          extortion by dishonest officials of fees for performing their
          sworn duty"
       3: the felonious act of extorting money (as by threats of
          violence)
   .

"an exhorbitant charge"

[saagarjha]

You can coerce someone to be your customer.

[gdulli]

Terms are commonly used metaphorically to show the speaker considers a given situation to resemble that term qualitatively but not exactly. Very commonly. Like, it's practically fundamental to our communication.