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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

That feels like something that AWS would want to shut down if the business ever gets large enough. AWS has its own partners / AWS distribution program, which usage.ai doesn't seem to be a part of.

Do you believe you'll be able to continue running this once someone high enough in AWS "notices" you?

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This doesn’t make sense, there is no reason AWS would want this shut down. They are buying reserved instances, which AWS sell because it helps them to do so. They are charging the customer 20% savings to help them. They are buying the reserved instances back themselves if needed.

From an AWS perspective this is simple market usage of AWS RIs and cost savings for the customer while easy/reliable usage predictability for AWS for cpu forecasting. It’s a win. And as below looks like they have a healthy relationship with AWS.

They're effectively a kind of bulk resellers. AWS may choose to be happy about it (happy customers keen to spend more on services) or not (less AWS income). It really depends on how the management sees it.

I don't think it would result in less AWS income -- AWS knows exactly how much on-demand, reserved, and spot instances cost them and they price them accordingly.

I don't think this is true, if it shifts usage from spot instances to the reseller's spot instances backed by AWS reserved instances they'll be making less money.

They shift to reserved instances, not spot instances.

It'd be hard for a service provider to shift their customers instances to spot instances unless the customer could tolerate the spot instances being shut down on short notice, and if they can, that customer may as well just use the spot instances themselves.

Worst case, this will increase usage of reserve instances and reduce on-demand usage, but AWS priced them accordingly, so they don't care

That’s only true in a nominal sense. Money right now is worth more than money in the future. Money spent on reserved instances is money Amazon has right now, whereas net AWS spend from spot instances is money in the future.

How much money right now is worth more varies, but Amazon knows best here and prices accordingly.

We have a strong positive relationship with AWS and will be partners with them in the coming months!

like how Hollywood has a strong positive relationship with China until the censors suddenly deny all films access? Last year was pretty tough.. for example.

well, hope you get a few months of nice payouts! individuals don't need ARR :) one or two nice paychecks is good enough for lifelong success, so you only have to be right once or solve a market need once!

Does it break TOS?

Did Amazon shut down Snowflake despite losing a bunch of Redshift dough to them?

I'm not sure why you feel AWS would shut down a company who is using their resources in a clever manner.

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