[liotier]

I don't believe that startups in their garage days have anywhere near the necessary leverage to negotiate anything with Amazon...

[jaequery]

Agree, not many people actually realize just how slow and expensive AWS actually is. Kudos to SO for going with their own hardware.

[dekhn]

they negotiate, still. I know several startups which went to amazon, said, "hey, your competitor is cheaper, what is your value prop" and suddenly had 50% discounts, etc. It's amazing how much you get simply asking!