[larrys]

"And if there's a cut off, maybe linode should advertise that? "Hey, we're cheap, but you get what you pay for!" rather than "You're getting ripped off if you go with amazon over linode!""

Well of course that's never going to happen and the truth is the contracts of the more expensive provider no doubt also limit liability. (And all of this is in the TOS/contract etc). So what we are really talking about is who will do a better job protecting what you have AND more importantly who has more to loose if they screw up. (Small linode has more to loose but they also don't have deep pockets to pay. Amazon has deep pockets but access to magnitudes greater legal help to prevent having to pay.)