[RC_ITR]

Spending too much time around other developers.

In the current environment, E-commerce is a less interesting space for startup founders vs. cloud SW. This led parent commenter to assume the cloud is more important than E-commerce.

This is a fallacy, of course, since E-commerce is probably the largest / most important market on the internet, it just doesn't FEEL that way b/c Amazon has an unprecedented control over nearly the entire thing.

[treis]

AWS has 40 billion in revenue, 12 billion in profit and is growing 30% YoY. It's got great profit margins, huge lock in, and is a natural monopoly. Not sure how much it would be worth on the open market, but wouldn't surprise me that it's 50%+ of Amazon's market cap.

[RC_ITR]

This may seem like a silly question, but what is the point of the cloud if people don't buy goods / services over the Internet? If ecommerce remained flat for the rest of time, do you really think the cloud would grow?

[randomsearch]

AWS is 57% of Amazon's profit in 2020.

Cloud has barely begun.

[RC_ITR]

This may seem like a silly question, but what is the point of the cloud if people don't buy goods / services over the Internet?

If ecommerce remained flat for the rest of time, do you really think the cloud would grow?

[randomsearch]

I don't really see the cloud as attached to retail. But yes, if online retail remained flat, the cloud would still grow. Because most software will be built using the cloud, for the cloud, for the foreseeable future (I'd stake confidently 50 years, probably at least 100, perhaps forever).

[RC_ITR]

I think you’re being very short sighted.

“Retail” is just the part of commerce that’s somewhat moved online today. “E-commerce” is any type of commerce moving online.

I really struggle to think of reasons as to why people will pay for software if it doesn’t ultimately lead to commerce.

EDIT: For context, BABA used it e-commerce lead in China to become the largest gateway for utility bill-pay. Very much not retail, but still e-commerce. The internet is a tool run by humans to serve humans, & if humans aren’t transacting using the internet, everything else about the internet is inherently less valuable.