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Comment by zorked | Hacker News Reader

Certainly, see for example https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/reserved-instances/, search for "Scale with your Business". Similar discounts exist for most of their other services.

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Not to mention, Netflix is a flagship customer for AWS and directly results in AWS getting more business, so I'd expect the discounts to be even deeper for Netflix.

I remember reading something about how AWS is pretty much running very close to at cost (super razor-thin margins, just like the Amazon shops themselves),but seeing these numbers seems to imply otherwise (20% is a big chunk of change).

"AWS is pretty much running very close to at cost (super razor-thin margins"

Compare the Amazon price with other VPSs.

It's a different service, yes, but it's not even close, not even if you reserve the instances (it's been a while since I did the math though)

But for small scale, I recommend strongly against AWS

Isn't the opposite true? It's fine for under 10 instances when you're first starting up and still flexible, but over that you're better off going colo?

I've described AWS as a great "deal" for very small and for very large customers. For people in the middle, not so much.

Also depends on what you consider a deal -- the lower tier hardware works for a Wordpress blog, but not necessarily for much more. For the price, a good Linode or even a dedicated server will get you more bang for the buck.

Amazon (the mothership) runs at a loss [1]

It is predicted that Amazon AWS runs at a huge margin [2]

Of course it's possible that these number are skewed by some Irish Whiskey Double Dutch Vegemite Sandwich tax avoidance system.

[1] http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/24/red-is-the-new-green-for-a...

[2] http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/05/amazons-mountain-of-margin...

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