
Ask HN: At 9 cents/GB downloaded, how can any company afford cloud computing? - blodovnik
I get it if you generate little traffic, but for any site that generates any substantial traffic, it seems like costs would rapidly go through the roof. Or am I missing some key understanding?<p>Or is it just that companies pay attention to pricing except for that critical little 9 cent line item?<p>So if your user watches a 1 gig video, that costs your company 9 cents? Seems like a lot of money.
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QuinnyPig
It’s nowhere near that straightforward:
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-guides/og-
aws/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-guides/og-
aws/master/figures/aws-data-transfer-costs.png)

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mneil
I agree with the first response. Cloud is simpler to manage and lowers
(typically) the cost to maintain infrastructure. There's the cost, them
there's the total cost.

Who is charging 9 cents a gb? S3 transfer cost is .023 cents per gb.

Also, what is the value of your 1gb video to you? Does it drive sales? Does it
enhance a brand? What cost are you willing to incur to distribute the content?
At some point you're going to pay some amount to do this.

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blodovnik
This page says s3 is 9 cents
[https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/)

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wmf
Certainly don't serve videos through the cloud. Besides that, if your revenue
doesn't cover your cloud bill then your business was never viable anyway.

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lostmymind66
Cloud hosting is for companies that have money and don't want to worry about
managing everything themselves. You can get much better rates elsewhere.

