That doesn't have to be true. Amazon or one of their competitors could provide a discount by locking into multi year discounts (e.g. reserved pricing). The clo

That doesn't have to be true. Amazon or one of their competitors could provide a discount by locking into multi year discounts (e.g. reserved pricing). The cloud providers are in a cut throat business (mitigated somewhat by value added services), so the price will bob along near cost (though they may eak out more profit on some work loads compared to others).