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1 big data centre is cheaper than 1000 little ones There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. Utilizing them might very well

1 big data centre is cheaper than 1000 little ones There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. Utilizing them might very well be cheaper then building and maintaining a new datacenter. everyone buys and sells through Amazon because thats where you find the most buyers and sellers Not everyone. Not even the majority. Even in the USA which is Amazons biggest market, their market share is less then 50%. Individual onlineshops are also moving billions. Even the small ones built with Shopify are moving billions when you combine their revenue. And then there is Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, Alibaba, Rakuten, Zalando ... all moving billions worth of goods.

ohazi 7y ago
> There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free. I won't let you use my phone's spare cycles and murder my battery while we're still using lipo cells that degrade after 2 years with regular use.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free unless you tie it to an incentive, and thus you arrive at cryptocurrencies
  - stickfigure 7y ago
    Funny you mention that, since we've seen cryptocurrency processing concentrated in big data centers... for all the same reasons everything else is located in big data centers - energy and bandwidth are cheaper.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      That's up to whoever is supplying the services. While many may be outsourcing this to data centers, I'm sure it's not the case for everyone and there are people operating their own hardware.
ineedasername 7y ago
Re: unused computers: I don't see technology on the horizon that would tackle usage of unused systems in any way that could compete with the low-friction of something like AWS. I'm not saying it's impossible, only that it doesn't seem like a problem that is getting much attention. Re: Amazon: Most of the other venues you mention are secondary markets for the exact same sellers. People have their own Shopify, Etsy, Ebay, etc., storefront but then also sell on Amazon because that's where so much of the market is. As far as I can tell it's an increasing trend in that direction.
cesarb 7y ago
> There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. Utilizing them That used to be popular (for instance, distributed.net) back when the processors used the same power whether they were idle or not. Nowadays, there is a huge difference in power usage and heat output between an idle or mostly idle processor, and a fully loaded one. (My first desktop had a processor without a fan or even a heat spreader, and came with an operating system which had a busy loop as its idle loop.)
- redisman 7y ago
  And most of these computers are running on batteries. Even on my desktop I'd have to get a decent return to share my CPU/GPU/storage. The computer cost me about $700 to build so I certainly wouldn't share it for pennies.

ohazi 7y ago

> There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free. I won't let you use my phone's spare cycles and murder my battery while we're still using lipo cells that degrade after 2 years with regular use.

hanniabu 7y ago
> They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free unless you tie it to an incentive, and thus you arrive at cryptocurrencies
- stickfigure 7y ago
  Funny you mention that, since we've seen cryptocurrency processing concentrated in big data centers... for all the same reasons everything else is located in big data centers - energy and bandwidth are cheaper.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    That's up to whoever is supplying the services. While many may be outsourcing this to data centers, I'm sure it's not the case for everyone and there are people operating their own hardware.

ineedasername 7y ago

Re: unused computers: I don't see technology on the horizon that would tackle usage of unused systems in any way that could compete with the low-friction of something like AWS. I'm not saying it's impossible, only that it doesn't seem like a problem that is getting much attention. Re: Amazon: Most of the other venues you mention are secondary markets for the exact same sellers. People have their own Shopify, Etsy, Ebay, etc., storefront but then also sell on Amazon because that's where so much of the market is. As far as I can tell it's an increasing trend in that direction.

cesarb 7y ago

> There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time. Utilizing them That used to be popular (for instance, distributed.net) back when the processors used the same power whether they were idle or not. Nowadays, there is a huge difference in power usage and heat output between an idle or mostly idle processor, and a fully loaded one. (My first desktop had a processor without a fan or even a heat spreader, and came with an operating system which had a busy loop as its idle loop.)

redisman 7y ago
And most of these computers are running on batteries. Even on my desktop I'd have to get a decent return to share my CPU/GPU/storage. The computer cost me about $700 to build so I certainly wouldn't share it for pennies.