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Just because you don't understand the value proposition of something doesn't make it a scam.

Retric 6y ago
AWS is a scam not because it can’t save you money, but because they actively try to trick you into spending more money. That’s practically the definition of a scam. Go to the AWS console and try to answer even simply things like how much did the last hour/day/week cost me? Or how about some notifications if that new service you just added is going to cost vastly more than you where expecting. I know of a few people getting fired after migrating to AWS and it’s not because the company was suddenly saving money.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  AWs is pretty bad at telling you how much something you're not running will cost if you run it but I've never had any issues knowing what something has cost me in the past. >Go to the AWS console and try to answer even simply things like how much did the last hour/day/week cost me? Click user@account in top right, click My Billing Dashboard, spend this month is on that page in giant font, click Cost Explorer for more granular breakdown (day, service, etc.), click Bill Details for list breakdown of spend by month. >Or how about some notifications if that new service you just added is going to cost vastly more than you where expecting. Billing Dashboard and then Budgets. edit: This assumes you have permissions to see billing details, by default non-root accounts do not which might be why you're confused.
  - Retric 6y ago
    > Click user@account in top right, click My Billing Dashboard, spend this month is on that page in giant font, click Cost Explorer for more granular breakdown (day, service, etc.), click Bill Details for list breakdown of spend by month. Sure, you see a number but I was just talking with someone at AWS who said it you still can’t trust it to be up to date especially across zone boundaries. That means it’s useful when everything is working as expected but can be actively misleading when troubleshooting.
- whoknew1122 6y ago
  Disclosure: Work at AWS. I've never seen AWS actively try to trick people into spending more money. I've seen Premium Support, product service teams, solutions architects, and account managers all suggest not to use AWS services if it doesn't fit the customer usecase. I've personally recommended non-AWS options for customers who are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Can the billing console be better? Yes. But AWS isn't trying to trick anyone into anything. The console, while it has its troubles, doesn't have dark patterns and pricing is transparent. You pay for what you use, and prices have never decreased. Hell, I know of a specific service that was priced poorly (meaning it wasn't profitable for AWS). Instead of raising prices, AWS ate its hat while rewriting the entire service from scratch to give it better offerings and make it cheaper (both for AWS and customers).
  - wongarsu 6y ago
    > pricing is transparent If pricing is intended to be transparent, then why is it completely absent from the user interface? Transparent pricing would be to tell me how much something costs when I order it, not make me use a different tool or find it in the documentation
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      No, no, you're supposed to use their cthulhu inspired pricing tool. I mean, you've got at least a 50/50 chance of figuring out how to use it before you go permanently insane.
    - BombNullIsland 6y ago
      If you're so incompetent that you can't estimate your costs, a fixed price microserver built into a dilapidated wooden shanty with no obvious fire protection system is what you should be buying.
  - Retric 6y ago
    I haven’t used AWS in a while but one trick that I recall was enabling service X also enabled sub dependencies. Instantly disabling service X didn’t stop services XYZ which you continued to be billed for. Granted not that expensive, but it still felt like a trap. Other stuff was more debatable, but it just felt like dancing in a mine field.

AWS is a scam not because it can’t save you money, but because they actively try to trick you into spending more money. That’s practically the definition of a scam. Go to the AWS console and try to answer even simply things like how much did the last hour/day/week cost me? Or how about some notifications if that new service you just added is going to cost vastly more than you where expecting. I know of a few people getting fired after migrating to AWS and it’s not because the company was suddenly saving money.

marcinzm 6y ago
AWs is pretty bad at telling you how much something you're not running will cost if you run it but I've never had any issues knowing what something has cost me in the past. >Go to the AWS console and try to answer even simply things like how much did the last hour/day/week cost me? Click user@account in top right, click My Billing Dashboard, spend this month is on that page in giant font, click Cost Explorer for more granular breakdown (day, service, etc.), click Bill Details for list breakdown of spend by month. >Or how about some notifications if that new service you just added is going to cost vastly more than you where expecting. Billing Dashboard and then Budgets. edit: This assumes you have permissions to see billing details, by default non-root accounts do not which might be why you're confused.
- Retric 6y ago
  > Click user@account in top right, click My Billing Dashboard, spend this month is on that page in giant font, click Cost Explorer for more granular breakdown (day, service, etc.), click Bill Details for list breakdown of spend by month. Sure, you see a number but I was just talking with someone at AWS who said it you still can’t trust it to be up to date especially across zone boundaries. That means it’s useful when everything is working as expected but can be actively misleading when troubleshooting.
whoknew1122 6y ago
Disclosure: Work at AWS. I've never seen AWS actively try to trick people into spending more money. I've seen Premium Support, product service teams, solutions architects, and account managers all suggest not to use AWS services if it doesn't fit the customer usecase. I've personally recommended non-AWS options for customers who are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Can the billing console be better? Yes. But AWS isn't trying to trick anyone into anything. The console, while it has its troubles, doesn't have dark patterns and pricing is transparent. You pay for what you use, and prices have never decreased. Hell, I know of a specific service that was priced poorly (meaning it wasn't profitable for AWS). Instead of raising prices, AWS ate its hat while rewriting the entire service from scratch to give it better offerings and make it cheaper (both for AWS and customers).
- wongarsu 6y ago
  > pricing is transparent If pricing is intended to be transparent, then why is it completely absent from the user interface? Transparent pricing would be to tell me how much something costs when I order it, not make me use a different tool or find it in the documentation
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    No, no, you're supposed to use their cthulhu inspired pricing tool. I mean, you've got at least a 50/50 chance of figuring out how to use it before you go permanently insane.
  - BombNullIsland 6y ago
    If you're so incompetent that you can't estimate your costs, a fixed price microserver built into a dilapidated wooden shanty with no obvious fire protection system is what you should be buying.
- Retric 6y ago
  I haven’t used AWS in a while but one trick that I recall was enabling service X also enabled sub dependencies. Instantly disabling service X didn’t stop services XYZ which you continued to be billed for. Granted not that expensive, but it still felt like a trap. Other stuff was more debatable, but it just felt like dancing in a mine field.