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Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, not sure I’d place a bet on DO taking on AWS realistically, but:

> So to think that DigitalOcean with a $300MM debt line and 250+ people in engineering is going to go after AWS just doesn't add up.

Lots of Money + Lots of People =/= Guaranteed Success

It’s more a matter of taking on the market from a slightly different angle.

One viable path I see is for DO to ramp up their enterprise appeal by offering services on par with AWS, while cutting down the operational complexity of managing AWS services (using AWS = incredibly high overhead with configuration and everything else).

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> One viable path I see is for DO to ramp up their enterprise appeal by offering services on par with AWS, while cutting down the operational complexity of managing AWS services (using AWS = incredibly high overhead with configuration and everything else).

Absolutely. Getting into AWS, etc can be overwhelming. Getting into DO is incredibly easy.

> Lots of Money + Lots of People =/= Guaranteed Success

I'll agree on that.

I won't agree with the rest though, I don't think DO can compete in an enterprise level.

Actually in the longrun I don't see DO ever being viable. AWS and google are going to become simpler as the time passes and they are going to take over that margin that is left on services like DO, ovh etc. I think the only viable business plan for them right now would be to focus on their simplicity and continue building on it hoping they will get bought out by the big players. Obviously thats not good for us -> amazon and google owning everything on the web but unless there is some crazy law that limits them from doing so, they are going to do it.

There are still MANY old style ISPs playing in the DO-like space. Hosting is HUGE. Plenty of room for many DO like players at .1-1% marketshare.

Google and AWS are NOT going to become simpler, to the contrary, that would defeat their entire proposition. To eliminate the traditional enterprise data center entirely, build sufficient lock-in moats, and then continue to innovate around costs and value requires tons of bespoke capabilities and complexities.

> AWS and google are going to become simpler as the time passes

Really? I see them becoming more complex as they add more services.

I agree I don't see AWS and Google becoming simpler, but instead becoming more complex. They are also catering to workloads that are completely different and they really need to have every single possible knob and dial and configuration possible to satisfy these enterprise customers.

Doing what they do is complex and takes a certain skill set, but also doing simplicity right is it's own skill set.

I would say that I would be more worried in the past when AWS was more of a single player, but now that Google and Azure are firmly in the picture, AWS has some real competition in their core market which takes their focus away from us which is great.

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