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There are more than one type of network effects. This one is called "Indirect network effect". What you have written is direct network effect. As more develope

There are more than one type of network effects. This one is called "Indirect network effect". What you have written is direct network effect. As more developers start using AWS, there forms a large developer ecosystem around AWS tools and services, and therefore "developer B" will find it much easier and cheaper to use AWS, indirectly.

streetcat1 7y ago
So they will not find it much cheaper. AWS is priced that same regardless. They might enjoy knowledge sharing, but at the speed that AWS evolves, the half-life of such knowledge is very short. If I would bet on anything it would be Kubernetes. At least my knowledge is the same across clouds/on-prem. And there is no gatekeeper.
- nickbauman 7y ago
  Except the technical complexity. I work with some very experienced k8s devops engineers these days and they screw up catastrophically every so often because of the million switches and buttons on k8s.
  - streetcat1 7y ago
    Right. Kubernetes is supposed to be managed by machines not by humans.
    - nickbauman 7y ago
      So how does a k8s engineer retire a node? This recently fooked up our cluster and it came down to a DNS issue... I don't see how that is "managed by a machine" am I missing something?
crazygringo 7y ago
I don't think that indirect network effect is particularly strong in this case, though. There are similar ecosystems around Azure and Google Cloud, and there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. I really don't think AWS is getting any kind of meaningful competitive advantage here these days. And if there's any at all, it's dwarfed by technical, financial, and strategic factors.
- pytester 7y ago
  >there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds, but most of those suffer from some sort of impedance mismatch and/or do not fully support the features which those clouds supply.
- lmeyerov 7y ago
  In BigCorp, which is ~half of all business, there is consistent pressure to standardize: cost, security, education, etc. There are all sorts of other levers too, like negotiated group deals -- at places like Netflix, AWS is effectively free, while any other vendor requires going through procurement. Competing with a negotiated loss leader - free - sucks. Azure benefits a LOT here due to other MS bundling. I'm increasingly convinced all this means we are entering a telco-like monopoly era for Big Cloud software, starting at the infra layers and steadily moving up. I'd love a more savvy approach from Elizabeth Warren to be less 'break them up' to more 'these are the anti-competitive bundling violations.'
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. “Equally badly”, you forgot ;-) Cloud agnostic tools really mean “lowest common denominator” which means you end up paying premiums but not using the features. Just say no to Terraform!

streetcat1 7y ago

So they will not find it much cheaper. AWS is priced that same regardless. They might enjoy knowledge sharing, but at the speed that AWS evolves, the half-life of such knowledge is very short. If I would bet on anything it would be Kubernetes. At least my knowledge is the same across clouds/on-prem. And there is no gatekeeper.

nickbauman 7y ago
Except the technical complexity. I work with some very experienced k8s devops engineers these days and they screw up catastrophically every so often because of the million switches and buttons on k8s.
- streetcat1 7y ago
  Right. Kubernetes is supposed to be managed by machines not by humans.
  - nickbauman 7y ago
    So how does a k8s engineer retire a node? This recently fooked up our cluster and it came down to a DNS issue... I don't see how that is "managed by a machine" am I missing something?

crazygringo 7y ago

I don't think that indirect network effect is particularly strong in this case, though. There are similar ecosystems around Azure and Google Cloud, and there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. I really don't think AWS is getting any kind of meaningful competitive advantage here these days. And if there's any at all, it's dwarfed by technical, financial, and strategic factors.

pytester 7y ago
>there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds, but most of those suffer from some sort of impedance mismatch and/or do not fully support the features which those clouds supply.
lmeyerov 7y ago
In BigCorp, which is ~half of all business, there is consistent pressure to standardize: cost, security, education, etc. There are all sorts of other levers too, like negotiated group deals -- at places like Netflix, AWS is effectively free, while any other vendor requires going through procurement. Competing with a negotiated loss leader - free - sucks. Azure benefits a LOT here due to other MS bundling. I'm increasingly convinced all this means we are entering a telco-like monopoly era for Big Cloud software, starting at the infra layers and steadily moving up. I'd love a more savvy approach from Elizabeth Warren to be less 'break them up' to more 'these are the anti-competitive bundling violations.'
goatinaboat 7y ago
there are plenty of tools that support all 3 clouds equally. “Equally badly”, you forgot ;-) Cloud agnostic tools really mean “lowest common denominator” which means you end up paying premiums but not using the features. Just say no to Terraform!