If bad PR affected their business, they might have something to consider. But this will never affect their growth. They're not going to lose a single solitary s

If bad PR affected their business, they might have something to consider. But this will never affect their growth. They're not going to lose a single solitary sale that isn't already accounted for by their standard profit model. The only bad PR that would affect their business is if their actual reputation as a service provider were tarnished. Charging people money for a service they used does not tarnish AWS's reputation. It's their whole business model. When you stay in a hotel room longer than you're supposed to and they charge you for another half day, or you eat food from the mini fridge, or buy a pay-per-view movie, etc, you could claim ignorance, and create stories about how terrible it is that people get charged for these things unknowingly. But Holiday Inn's bookings are still not going to take a noticeable hit. Moreover, they don't even need to offer a Free Tier to get people to use AWS. They're AWS. They're the gold standard. It's like saying IBM would need a Free Tier (back when IBM wasn't trash). It wasn't a question of whether you should use IBM, it was whether you could afford it.