[dehrmann]

> Most companies running on AWS/GCP/Azure are paying nowhere near the advertised costs

This is true, but it misses a big motivation behind it. It costs more to have enough capacity to support on-demand use since it has to sit idle, waiting for a customer. Part of the discount you get is you give AGA certainty in demand. They don't need to hold as many machines in the on-demand pool, and it makes long-term planning easier. You'll also find that those on-demand prices don't actually scale. At some point, you'll have to talk to a rep and commit to more hardware and a discount because you're just too big.