Really like the direction DO is going. Which is something in between millions of small VPS firm and giant like AWS. It also forced Linode to React. And proved the space in Cloud Hosting exist, which company like Vultr and UpCloud are now joining. And I think their features are finally close to hitting the perfect spot. With all the essential like DBaS, Object Storage and K8s.
They have also ( finally ) introduced AMD EPYC CPU, ( no more explicit mention of Intel CPU on their homepage ). Which is good for their margin since price / core count are cheaper.
So DO today is something I would like as an AWS competitor in 2016. And they are finally here. I am not sure if there are any other low hanging fruit at all. Or what features I would want for a company competing at this space. It will be things that people dont see, like CPU performance, SSD Performance, Services Reliability, Interconnect, Better Network, More Locations, security improvement....
There are only two suggestions I could think on top of my head right now.
First is the pricing structure and list. It is getting very messy and AWS like. SSD Storage variant should be a simple calculable option, not an extra line on pricing table that tries to bombard me with extra information. And I know Basic Droplet are burst-able CPU resources, but not showing they are vCPU ( a Single Thread ) and calling them CPU doesn't really rhymes with me.
Second is Full BareMetal Monthly option. Something like vultr [1] is offering. I am not sure if below $100 is feasible. Basically it should be something that offer much better price / performance at a monthly payment that pushes people with low spending to metal for baseline load with headroom as insurance. Pushing up Average User Spending. It should also be attractive to small business. ( Although arguably Linode and Vultr has yet to expand or launch Metal seems to suggest otherwise )