8 ms·

Looks like it's a response to the recent cloud services market investigation by the CMA [1]. Which highlighted "Egress fees harm competition by creating barrie

by jdon 3y ago

Looks like it's a response to the recent cloud services market investigation by the CMA [1]. Which highlighted "Egress fees harm competition by creating barriers to switching and multi-cloud leading to cloud service providers entrenching their position" [2]. It's also interesting that they are calling out problems with software licensing, as that is another thing the CMA is investigating in their cloud market review. [1] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/cloud-services-market-investigation https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/cloud-services-market-investiga... [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/652e958b6972600014ccf9f6/Issues_statement__updated.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/652e958b69726...

jiveturkey 3y ago
I don't see it that way at all. Those egregious egress charges still apply while you are actively using GCP, encouraging you to put everything in GCP, and eschew multicloud. This seems to me more of a "try us out for free" play. Bring your big data here, if you end up not liking it, we won't penalize you for taking your data out. Given that GCP is running at a very distant 3rd, they need to make plays like this.
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  It could also be a method to put pressure on AWS to get rid of their egress fees. If it doesn't work - GCP looks a little better compared to AWS If it does work, AWS users will have an easier time extricating themselves from the platform, and possibly going to GCP.
  - donalhunt 3y ago
    This. I see this as purely an attempt to influence AWS in lowering the barriers of migrating between clouds. But also makes sense for those who want the option to test the waters with no downside.
blibble 3y ago
I read through a couple of these responses to the CMA by MS, Google and AWS and their smaller competitors as expected the hyperscalers refuse to acknowledge that the free ingress and expensive egress is a lock-in mechanism, and their smaller competitors complain bitterly about this the hyperscalers say they have to charge egress fees to pay for the costs in building their networks, but for some reason doesn't apply to ingress (which they're silent on) if they want to play this game then the CMA should simply make them charge the same for ingress and egress that way they can "fund their network costs" without issue, and if they want to make them both free then that's their decision
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >but for some reason doesn't apply to ingress (which they're silent on) The industry standard for peering is paying the 95th percentile of egress or ingress depending on whichever is greater. Ingress is free for these clouds because egress > ingress overall.
  - blibble 3y ago
    I accept there's some level of cost, but the prices are so high it's hard to describe it as anything other than gouging to prevent competition
    - toast0 3y ago
      My personal feeling is they're moving costs around so that egress has a big margin and other items have a smaller or potentially negative margin. I've seen this at other providers. We did a competitive pricing exercise at my last company, and our overall cost went down, but the mechanism was per hosts costs went down significantly and egress costs went up significantly, and the per host cost decrease outweighed the egress cost increase. It still doesn't make sense to charge for ingress, because everybody knows that should be free, unless you're a residential ISP.
      - lokar 3y ago
profsummergig 3y ago
It's also smart Game Theory. If they remove the fees, then competition might be pressured to do so (as a marketing response). Thus making it easier for people to switch to Google.
- willsmith72 3y ago
  and google has way less to lose than amazon

by jdon 3y ago

jiveturkey 3y ago

I don't see it that way at all. Those egregious egress charges still apply while you are actively using GCP, encouraging you to put everything in GCP, and eschew multicloud. This seems to me more of a "try us out for free" play. Bring your big data here, if you end up not liking it, we won't penalize you for taking your data out. Given that GCP is running at a very distant 3rd, they need to make plays like this.

oh_sigh 3y ago
It could also be a method to put pressure on AWS to get rid of their egress fees. If it doesn't work - GCP looks a little better compared to AWS If it does work, AWS users will have an easier time extricating themselves from the platform, and possibly going to GCP.
- donalhunt 3y ago
  This. I see this as purely an attempt to influence AWS in lowering the barriers of migrating between clouds. But also makes sense for those who want the option to test the waters with no downside.

blibble 3y ago

I read through a couple of these responses to the CMA by MS, Google and AWS and their smaller competitors as expected the hyperscalers refuse to acknowledge that the free ingress and expensive egress is a lock-in mechanism, and their smaller competitors complain bitterly about this the hyperscalers say they have to charge egress fees to pay for the costs in building their networks, but for some reason doesn't apply to ingress (which they're silent on) if they want to play this game then the CMA should simply make them charge the same for ingress and egress that way they can "fund their network costs" without issue, and if they want to make them both free then that's their decision

charcircuit 3y ago
>but for some reason doesn't apply to ingress (which they're silent on) The industry standard for peering is paying the 95th percentile of egress or ingress depending on whichever is greater. Ingress is free for these clouds because egress > ingress overall.
- blibble 3y ago
  I accept there's some level of cost, but the prices are so high it's hard to describe it as anything other than gouging to prevent competition
  - toast0 3y ago
    My personal feeling is they're moving costs around so that egress has a big margin and other items have a smaller or potentially negative margin. I've seen this at other providers. We did a competitive pricing exercise at my last company, and our overall cost went down, but the mechanism was per hosts costs went down significantly and egress costs went up significantly, and the per host cost decrease outweighed the egress cost increase. It still doesn't make sense to charge for ingress, because everybody knows that should be free, unless you're a residential ISP.
    - lokar 3y ago

profsummergig 3y ago

It's also smart Game Theory. If they remove the fees, then competition might be pressured to do so (as a marketing response). Thus making it easier for people to switch to Google.

willsmith72 3y ago
and google has way less to lose than amazon