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I am sure that some people did try to use the free tier, and that AWS probably has some decent controls in place to monitor for this type of activity. They are

I am sure that some people did try to use the free tier, and that AWS probably has some decent controls in place to monitor for this type of activity. They are also a MASSIVE company that can absorb loss much easier than a startup. [1] As far as the API goes, I don't know if you're aware of how hacking works, but not having an api has protected exactly no one ever. Calling your application secure because "it has a button, not an API" is completely absurd. [2] As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? 5 clicks to make a penny or two isn't out of the question, EVEN WITHOUT AUTOMATION, when the cost for living in some parts of the world is egregiously low. [3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818015 [2] http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp http://www.seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.jsp [3] http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechanicalturk.jpg http://online-job-work.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mechan...

MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? You still have to invest either your time or hire someone to set things up for the mechanical turk setup - the opportunity cost you pointed out earlier. And pennies per turk isn't worth it if your ROI is micropennies per turk. Depending on how much friction there is, it may be cheaper to trick your turks into running the bitcoin miner on their own computers. Not saying there's no potential for abuse - as you say, there is - but saying there's "no costs" and that "You literally can't lose" is about as accurate as saying there's "no profits" and that "You literally can't win". Unless CPU bitcoin mining is wildly more profitable than my understanding, given that you're competing against GPU and ASIC miners. Maybe one of the alt-currencies that are supposedly harder to GPU mine...?

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

> As far as costs, you understand that people do thousands of tasks on mechanic turk for pennies right? You still have to invest either your time or hire someone to set things up for the mechanical turk setup - the opportunity cost you pointed out earlier. And pennies per turk isn't worth it if your ROI is micropennies per turk. Depending on how much friction there is, it may be cheaper to trick your turks into running the bitcoin miner on their own computers. Not saying there's no potential for abuse - as you say, there is - but saying there's "no costs" and that "You literally can't lose" is about as accurate as saying there's "no profits" and that "You literally can't win". Unless CPU bitcoin mining is wildly more profitable than my understanding, given that you're competing against GPU and ASIC miners. Maybe one of the alt-currencies that are supposedly harder to GPU mine...?