Ask HN: Should Cloud Service Providers adhere to a standard pricing model?

Suppose that your cloud stack is the same across different cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, IBM, Digital Ocean, etc.), then shouldn't it cost the same? Our organization launched a mandate to architect our tech stack across multiple cloud providers. We tried to use cloud agnostic frameworks such as Kubernetes, Terraform, and the serverless framework to make it easier.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Each cloud has different services and those services have different dependencies. We had to re-evaluate the architecture on each cloud platform to ensure we were leveraging resources in a cost-effective and sane way. The architecture turned out highly different on each cloud platform. Moreover, the work to design with the cost in mind was significant. There are so many resources and "savings plans". Of course, these differentiators are what drives competition among the cloud providers but I think it is hurting adoption instead of helping in the long run.

The cost of resources on each cloud provider is a major factor in how we architect our apps. I think it would revolutionize the cloud industry and accelerate adoption if there existed a standard pricing model for cloud computing (at least for a subset of common services/compute/storage resources). That way, the cost of a design on one cloud provider is a reasonable estimate of the cost on another provider adhering to the standard pricing model. Moreover, advances in technology that drive prices down for resources in the standard pricing model can drive costs down across providers.

It's a naive ask from a neophyte cloud architect. But I think it's the future. What are your thoughts?