AWS' monthly costs approach cost of ownership. Netflix's costs in providing service are a substantial amount of their spend. AWS works well for Netflix becaus

AWS' monthly costs approach cost of ownership. Netflix's costs in providing service are a substantial amount of their spend. AWS works well for Netflix because they have a workload that varies on a daily and weekly basis - by using AWS' excess capacity during peak times, Netflix is able to save money over owning their infrastructure outright. Given AWS is one big Tetris game, jamming instances in where they fit, this has worked out well for both parties. Until now, with 'now' being defined as the dawn of distributed commodity compute.