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This is why public cloud companies should be more regulated like telephony companies are, ie like utilities. They give you broadband but not necessarily try to

This is why public cloud companies should be more regulated like telephony companies are, ie like utilities. They give you broadband but not necessarily try to sell you 15 kinds of database engines, or trying to build the same things other businesses try to build using their lines.

scarface74 8y ago
It kills me that a website full of well paid people in IT who all benefit from the free market always cry for regulation. I guess you don’t realize how many people in middle America would love to “tax the rich” and if you’re making six figures “they” consider you rich.
- polskibus 8y ago
  So it's ok to regulate telephony companies and cry out when they oppose net neutrality but it's just rage against the rich when people decry AMZN or MSFT that build the same services that their customers previously built on their infrastructure? It would be easy to make them decide - you either provide raw compute or you provide specialized P/SaaS (databases, etc.). Sure you could own two companies (IaaS and P/SaaS), but you would have to let other P/S on your Infra, without prefering anyone else. Result? Less vendor lock-in because of forced standarization between layers.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The cell phone carriers have never been regulated by net neutrality and I’m okay with that. There are four major national carriers, if one carrier is customer hostile, another carrier will pick up the slack. We saw just that with the rise of T-mobile. Most people only have one company offering terrestrial internet. So yeah that should be regulated. It’s considered a natural monopoly. Companies don’t have to depend on the major cloud providers - but there are at least three major ones and IBM and Oracle are making a play. There are even smaller providers that just host VMs like Linode. I can easily imagine Linode partnering with companies to provide managed services. On top of that cloud providers hosting servers is dwarfed by the number of companies who are using colos. There are plenty of business opportunities out there. So no, I don’t think that you should have regulation to protect a business model. Government regulation and monopoly regulation in particular was meant to prevent harm to consumers. But you really trust the government to have sensible technology regulation?
- CrazyPyroLinux 8y ago
  The problem with crony capitalism is the crony part, not the capitalism part. So I agree that laws (usually passed by people with more self-interest than understanding) are almost never the optimal solution, by definition. Trouble is that we don't actually have a true free market, so the question becomes what is the best real-world solution, given the distortions/limits of the existing system?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I trust the capitalist a lot more than the government. Capitalist are motivated with making money the transparent way - people give them money and they give people goods and services. The government is ruled by cronyism and even worse cow tow to people’s worse instincts, superstitions, and prejudices.
    - ianmcgowan 8y ago
      I like money as much as the next person, but your statement could perhaps stop at "Capitalist are motivated with making money" and still be mostly true. The other parts are optional. The function of government is to make sure those other parts happen - that the capitalist doesn't take the money and not provide the goods (the courts, the police) or provide goods in one place at a low price by dumping toxic shit in another hurting people (EPA), tell you lies and get you to invest in their firm (SEC) or a million other examples. The burden in burdensome regulations is in the eye of the beholder. Also remember that (at least in a democracy) we are the government. If you don't like what they're doing, vote the bums out. It's a little harder to vote out the plutocrats.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        We are not a democracy. We are at best a Republic. A democracy would be one vote one voice. But in the Senate, there are two Senator for Wyoming (population 540,000) that have the same vote as the two Senators from California (population 39 million +). On top of that you have gerrymandering. If you live in a populous city in a populous state your vote is worth much less than someone who lives in a rural city in a less populous state. You’re also assuming as a fact that the court system and the police are not corrupt and can be trusted...
- mcguire 8y ago
  As an aside, if you make six figures, you are rich.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I’m not disagreeing with you. But you would be surprised at how many people in the HN SV bubble think that all developers living anywhere in the country who are only making $100-$150K are living in trailers scraping by.
  - bitrrrate 8y ago
    Agreed. Plus many six figure salaries are attached to equal or greater amounts of equity, 401K match and typically low cost health insurance. So while it’s not jet-set wealth it is more than enough to have a very comfortable life with few things out of reach for you.
mr_toad 8y ago
Utilities are regulated because they are natural monopolies, not because they are large and profitable. AWS faces plenty of competition. There’s a reason that the pricing schedules of the major cloud vendors are so similar.

scarface74 8y ago

It kills me that a website full of well paid people in IT who all benefit from the free market always cry for regulation. I guess you don’t realize how many people in middle America would love to “tax the rich” and if you’re making six figures “they” consider you rich.

polskibus 8y ago
So it's ok to regulate telephony companies and cry out when they oppose net neutrality but it's just rage against the rich when people decry AMZN or MSFT that build the same services that their customers previously built on their infrastructure? It would be easy to make them decide - you either provide raw compute or you provide specialized P/SaaS (databases, etc.). Sure you could own two companies (IaaS and P/SaaS), but you would have to let other P/S on your Infra, without prefering anyone else. Result? Less vendor lock-in because of forced standarization between layers.
- scarface74 8y ago
  The cell phone carriers have never been regulated by net neutrality and I’m okay with that. There are four major national carriers, if one carrier is customer hostile, another carrier will pick up the slack. We saw just that with the rise of T-mobile. Most people only have one company offering terrestrial internet. So yeah that should be regulated. It’s considered a natural monopoly. Companies don’t have to depend on the major cloud providers - but there are at least three major ones and IBM and Oracle are making a play. There are even smaller providers that just host VMs like Linode. I can easily imagine Linode partnering with companies to provide managed services. On top of that cloud providers hosting servers is dwarfed by the number of companies who are using colos. There are plenty of business opportunities out there. So no, I don’t think that you should have regulation to protect a business model. Government regulation and monopoly regulation in particular was meant to prevent harm to consumers. But you really trust the government to have sensible technology regulation?
CrazyPyroLinux 8y ago
The problem with crony capitalism is the crony part, not the capitalism part. So I agree that laws (usually passed by people with more self-interest than understanding) are almost never the optimal solution, by definition. Trouble is that we don't actually have a true free market, so the question becomes what is the best real-world solution, given the distortions/limits of the existing system?
- scarface74 8y ago
  I trust the capitalist a lot more than the government. Capitalist are motivated with making money the transparent way - people give them money and they give people goods and services. The government is ruled by cronyism and even worse cow tow to people’s worse instincts, superstitions, and prejudices.
  - ianmcgowan 8y ago
    I like money as much as the next person, but your statement could perhaps stop at "Capitalist are motivated with making money" and still be mostly true. The other parts are optional. The function of government is to make sure those other parts happen - that the capitalist doesn't take the money and not provide the goods (the courts, the police) or provide goods in one place at a low price by dumping toxic shit in another hurting people (EPA), tell you lies and get you to invest in their firm (SEC) or a million other examples. The burden in burdensome regulations is in the eye of the beholder. Also remember that (at least in a democracy) we are the government. If you don't like what they're doing, vote the bums out. It's a little harder to vote out the plutocrats.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      We are not a democracy. We are at best a Republic. A democracy would be one vote one voice. But in the Senate, there are two Senator for Wyoming (population 540,000) that have the same vote as the two Senators from California (population 39 million +). On top of that you have gerrymandering. If you live in a populous city in a populous state your vote is worth much less than someone who lives in a rural city in a less populous state. You’re also assuming as a fact that the court system and the police are not corrupt and can be trusted...
mcguire 8y ago
As an aside, if you make six figures, you are rich.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m not disagreeing with you. But you would be surprised at how many people in the HN SV bubble think that all developers living anywhere in the country who are only making $100-$150K are living in trailers scraping by.
- bitrrrate 8y ago
  Agreed. Plus many six figure salaries are attached to equal or greater amounts of equity, 401K match and typically low cost health insurance. So while it’s not jet-set wealth it is more than enough to have a very comfortable life with few things out of reach for you.

mr_toad 8y ago

Utilities are regulated because they are natural monopolies, not because they are large and profitable. AWS faces plenty of competition. There’s a reason that the pricing schedules of the major cloud vendors are so similar.