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I keep hearing this but when you compare the same machine you get on Slicehost or linode with the Amazon prices, Amazon ends up being the most expensive. I use

I keep hearing this but when you compare the same machine you get on Slicehost or linode with the Amazon prices, Amazon ends up being the most expensive. I use Amazon because of it's convenience and brand name, but I've always seen it as having a decent premium.

staunch 16y ago
Amazon.com is also very often not the absolute cheapest option for products when compared purely on price. It's only if you calculate in reliability/shipping/customer support/convenience that they're the completely unbeatable on average. Anyone can buy $100k worth of servers and $10k/mo in bandwidth and easily beat AWS pricing. That doesn't make it competitive with AWS though. AWS is providing world-class network/server infrastructure as a commodity, which is decidedly different from the kinds of infrastructure most hosting companies have.
- fierarul 16y ago
  Doesn't this contradict your previous comment? How exactly do they "undercut everyone and go for long-term market share domination"? I actually think AWS is profitable and while they might not have recuperated their initial datacenter investments, they do cover the accounting depreciation (which is all that matters).
  - khafra 16y ago
    They undercut everyone offering the same product. Rock-bottom hosting that might stay up and might have customer service available sometimes is not the same product.
    - fierarul 16y ago
      Maybe I have a hard time understanding this, but the whole discussion was how Amazon undercuts their competitors and runs the business with a small loss because they are looking at the long-term game. Saying that Amazon sells you customer service seems entirely unrelated. Yes, the might have better customer service and they might have more things (EBS, Route 53, etc) but they certainly do not undercut their competitors price-wise.
ceejayoz 16y ago
If you run out of storage on Slicehost, though, you have to get a bigger machine, with more RAM and bandwidth. Run out on EC2 and you just add a new EBS store. There are major advantages to the completeness of the group of tools AWS includes.
- joevandyk 16y ago
  Yes, this is why I use EC2 instead of other providers.

staunch 16y ago

Amazon.com is also very often not the absolute cheapest option for products when compared purely on price. It's only if you calculate in reliability/shipping/customer support/convenience that they're the completely unbeatable on average. Anyone can buy $100k worth of servers and $10k/mo in bandwidth and easily beat AWS pricing. That doesn't make it competitive with AWS though. AWS is providing world-class network/server infrastructure as a commodity, which is decidedly different from the kinds of infrastructure most hosting companies have.

fierarul 16y ago
Doesn't this contradict your previous comment? How exactly do they "undercut everyone and go for long-term market share domination"? I actually think AWS is profitable and while they might not have recuperated their initial datacenter investments, they do cover the accounting depreciation (which is all that matters).
- khafra 16y ago
  They undercut everyone offering the same product. Rock-bottom hosting that might stay up and might have customer service available sometimes is not the same product.
  - fierarul 16y ago
    Maybe I have a hard time understanding this, but the whole discussion was how Amazon undercuts their competitors and runs the business with a small loss because they are looking at the long-term game. Saying that Amazon sells you customer service seems entirely unrelated. Yes, the might have better customer service and they might have more things (EBS, Route 53, etc) but they certainly do not undercut their competitors price-wise.

ceejayoz 16y ago

If you run out of storage on Slicehost, though, you have to get a bigger machine, with more RAM and bandwidth. Run out on EC2 and you just add a new EBS store. There are major advantages to the completeness of the group of tools AWS includes.

joevandyk 16y ago
Yes, this is why I use EC2 instead of other providers.