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>>> It's that cloud providers are now often seen as the only responsible way to operate infrastructure 23 billion. Thats the profit for AWS in 2023. 23 billo

>>> It's that cloud providers are now often seen as the only responsible way to operate infrastructure 23 billion. Thats the profit for AWS in 2023. 23 billon that AWS users pissed away. AWS is NOT cheap. I have quite a few clients who, could save lots of money dumping their cloud provider and setting up their own racks, hiring SA's. I have others who, if they optimized any of their stack could cut their AWS bills by half. Having survived the 2000 bubble the lessons are going to have to be re-learned. Everything has cost and value and managing that is going to become an engineering task in the near future.

Rapzid 3y ago
Business transactions aren't zero sum.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I mean AWS optimization is a valid consultancy/self employment career; it's like tech debt in coding, you make it work first, prove that it works, get value from it, and only then look into optimizing. Would these clients have been able to make the upfront investment to set up their own racks and hire / train the relevant staff? That's the sales pitch for AWS and other cloud providers, you can get started a lot faster, make money, only then look into optimizing. Running your own servers is easy to underestimate. Running it with the reliability, backup and fallbacks that cloud providers offer is also easily overlooked. How much does it cost to set up a multi region cluster yourself? That said, there are some real life examples of companies that moved away from AWS in favor of their own servers, like Dropbox which bootstrapped on AWS, then built their own eight years later (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/15/why-dropbox-decided-to-drop-aws-and-build-its-own-infrastructure-and-network/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/15/why-dropbox-decided-to-dro...).
- sgarland 3y ago
  > you can get started a lot faster, make money, only then look into optimizing. IME, companies often will first fall into the trap of minimum spend with AWS for larger discounts, such that even when you _do_ try to optimize things, it doesn’t matter. There is no greater disincentive than saving 5 digits per month, only to be told “thanks, but it doesn’t matter.” Tangentially, I think the rise of cloud and SaaS to blame more than anything for the I-shaped engineer. Why bother learning anything about optimization when K8s will silently add another node to the cluster as needed? Why bother learning SQL when ORMs abound, and your Serverless DB will happily upsize to deal with your terrible schema? After all, you’re being told to ship, ship, ship, so there’s not really any time to learn those things anyway. I simultaneously love and hate cloud providers, and am eagerly awaiting the slow but steady turn towards on-prem/colo. 37Signals has the right idea.
troupo 3y ago
> AWS is NOT cheap. I've realised that cloud costs are a "wave". (App is app/service/business) - cheap to run as a small app - costly to run as a bigger app, cheaper to self-host - cheaper than running all infra for a much bigger app - extremely costly compared to running all infra for a much-much bigger app - probably on par with running your own infra (but then you're getting into tens/hundreds of millions of customers)
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
You can sit here calling “profit” pissing money away until you’re on the receiving end of it. Then you’ll be going on about the value you’re providing. Stop being dramatic.
pdimitar 3y ago
> Everything has cost and value and managing that is going to become an engineering task in the near future. FYI: I have known people 8 years ago who already made money by optimizing people's AWS bills. "AWS expert", "AWS consultant" etc. are valid contractor titles.
jjice 3y ago
> 23 billon that AWS users pissed away. While I agree that running your own hardware can be _seriously_ cheaper, this is like saying that renting is a waste of money and everyone should purchase a home. Capacity planning isn't easy for a lot of small companies. Neither is the engineering time to set up, manage, and troubleshoot the hardware. At a certain scale, these are no brainers to take into your own hands, but for a 15 person engineering team that's completely focused on the product, it would be pretty expensive in human cost to set up and manage your own hardware. Sometimes, it can be set-and-forget, but rarely will it be as set-and-forget as a cloud provider. Is it more expensive overall? Yes. Is it "pissed away" money? In some cases, maybe. In many, no. The ease of running and reduced upfront capex is absolutely valuable.
- sroussey 3y ago
  I used to setup a rack for a two person engineering team. It does take focus away sometimes. Particularly if the Colo lost A/C… but thankfully that’s not really an issue these days.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > this is like saying that renting is a waste of money and everyone should purchase a home Renting is a waste of money and everyone (or at least a lot more people than at present) should own one's own home, whether on their own or via e.g. a housing cooperative.
  - drstewart 3y ago
    Everyone doesn't have the same goals as you and putting things in italics doesn't make you right
    - yellowapple 3y ago
      It ain't the italics that make me right, but the things I write :)
      - 3y ago
JAlexoid 3y ago
How much would be pissed away on duplicating DBMS administration work? Are we that far removed from reality to forget that one small team of DB admins can handle literally thousands of instances? We use AWS because collectively paying AWS 23billion is stupendously cheaper than 1m users AWS having a a whole infrastructure team.
acchow 3y ago
> 23 billon that AWS users pissed away. How do you know it would have cost them less to hire their own teams for self-hosting?

Rapzid 3y ago

Business transactions aren't zero sum.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I mean AWS optimization is a valid consultancy/self employment career; it's like tech debt in coding, you make it work first, prove that it works, get value from it, and only then look into optimizing. Would these clients have been able to make the upfront investment to set up their own racks and hire / train the relevant staff? That's the sales pitch for AWS and other cloud providers, you can get started a lot faster, make money, only then look into optimizing. Running your own servers is easy to underestimate. Running it with the reliability, backup and fallbacks that cloud providers offer is also easily overlooked. How much does it cost to set up a multi region cluster yourself? That said, there are some real life examples of companies that moved away from AWS in favor of their own servers, like Dropbox which bootstrapped on AWS, then built their own eight years later (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/15/why-dropbox-decided-to-drop-aws-and-build-its-own-infrastructure-and-network/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/15/why-dropbox-decided-to-dro...).

sgarland 3y ago
> you can get started a lot faster, make money, only then look into optimizing. IME, companies often will first fall into the trap of minimum spend with AWS for larger discounts, such that even when you _do_ try to optimize things, it doesn’t matter. There is no greater disincentive than saving 5 digits per month, only to be told “thanks, but it doesn’t matter.” Tangentially, I think the rise of cloud and SaaS to blame more than anything for the I-shaped engineer. Why bother learning anything about optimization when K8s will silently add another node to the cluster as needed? Why bother learning SQL when ORMs abound, and your Serverless DB will happily upsize to deal with your terrible schema? After all, you’re being told to ship, ship, ship, so there’s not really any time to learn those things anyway. I simultaneously love and hate cloud providers, and am eagerly awaiting the slow but steady turn towards on-prem/colo. 37Signals has the right idea.

troupo 3y ago

> AWS is NOT cheap. I've realised that cloud costs are a "wave". (App is app/service/business) - cheap to run as a small app - costly to run as a bigger app, cheaper to self-host - cheaper than running all infra for a much bigger app - extremely costly compared to running all infra for a much-much bigger app - probably on par with running your own infra (but then you're getting into tens/hundreds of millions of customers)

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago

You can sit here calling “profit” pissing money away until you’re on the receiving end of it. Then you’ll be going on about the value you’re providing. Stop being dramatic.

pdimitar 3y ago

> Everything has cost and value and managing that is going to become an engineering task in the near future. FYI: I have known people 8 years ago who already made money by optimizing people's AWS bills. "AWS expert", "AWS consultant" etc. are valid contractor titles.

jjice 3y ago

> 23 billon that AWS users pissed away. While I agree that running your own hardware can be _seriously_ cheaper, this is like saying that renting is a waste of money and everyone should purchase a home. Capacity planning isn't easy for a lot of small companies. Neither is the engineering time to set up, manage, and troubleshoot the hardware. At a certain scale, these are no brainers to take into your own hands, but for a 15 person engineering team that's completely focused on the product, it would be pretty expensive in human cost to set up and manage your own hardware. Sometimes, it can be set-and-forget, but rarely will it be as set-and-forget as a cloud provider. Is it more expensive overall? Yes. Is it "pissed away" money? In some cases, maybe. In many, no. The ease of running and reduced upfront capex is absolutely valuable.

sroussey 3y ago
I used to setup a rack for a two person engineering team. It does take focus away sometimes. Particularly if the Colo lost A/C… but thankfully that’s not really an issue these days.
yellowapple 3y ago
> this is like saying that renting is a waste of money and everyone should purchase a home Renting is a waste of money and everyone (or at least a lot more people than at present) should own one's own home, whether on their own or via e.g. a housing cooperative.
- drstewart 3y ago
  Everyone doesn't have the same goals as you and putting things in italics doesn't make you right
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    It ain't the italics that make me right, but the things I write :)
    - 3y ago

JAlexoid 3y ago

How much would be pissed away on duplicating DBMS administration work? Are we that far removed from reality to forget that one small team of DB admins can handle literally thousands of instances? We use AWS because collectively paying AWS 23billion is stupendously cheaper than 1m users AWS having a a whole infrastructure team.

acchow 3y ago

> 23 billon that AWS users pissed away. How do you know it would have cost them less to hire their own teams for self-hosting?