Scripting News - Latest Comments in Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

tasia — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:03:21 -0000

Do i still have Googleervices?

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

harold — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:21:24 -0000

Better to let a thousand flowers bloom knowing that the best ones will be available to you first because their software is perfectly compatible with yours.

Not just that, you have a bit of a lock-in with regard to your tech platform and knowledge when you're already using their stuff.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Sametal847 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:56:07 -0000

http://www.techcrunch.com/2...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2...

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

tbagger — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:51:21 -0000

The smart thing about google strategy is that they charge nothing for the 99% of us who depend on Google for personal or small business use. There there is the 1% like snygast (previous posting) who, representing a company with IT budget, need to scale their google appetite. These poeple in effect pay for the rest of us.

So same thing about web services: If you really a heavy web service, you get to pay, otherwise it will probably stay free.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

snyggast — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:49:11 -0000

It will not be free. Trust me. Anyone here who uses Google's App for your domain know that. I use gmail for my domain and I only get to sign up 100 people. If you want more, you'll have to pay.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

pbreit — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:22:32 -0000

One thing about these types of services is that there needs to be a replacement that one could switch to for whatever reason, else it's just too risky for anything but hobbies. Another interesting player is Mosso.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Don Jackson — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:52:23 -0000

Maybe it will be offered for free, but will there be an SLA?
I believe some of the AWS services now have an SLA.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Folknology — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:18:28 -0000

Posted a some details of how Google could implement a freemium cloud play
http://www.folknology.com/b...
It is mostly speculation of course but I am locking onto a lot of Steve Yegge's work inside Google, You have to admit that they have certainly laid some clues through folks like Steve!!

regards
Al

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Nat Torkington — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:56:00 -0000

Y! doesn't have a central infrastructure for distributed computation (does that make sense?) the way Google does. I've read they have some systems using Hadoop, but I suspect they're not a large part of any major Yahoo! property (don't know first-hand from a Yahoo!, though, so am not gospel on this).

The funny thing is that it was *Google* doing the get-out-the-word in the universities around Hadoop. I guess they're confident that if the grads are smart and proficient in tools, Google will still have the edge over Yahoo! in hiring.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Ryan — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:56:37 -0000

sounds like you're channeling kevin burton, from way back in september 2007:

http://feedblog.org/2007/09...

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Jackson Miller — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:49:27 -0000

I really hope what you are talking about does come to fruition. I have a startup I am trying to launch but cannot afford to do so (money is tight as the single earner for a family of six). Something like AWS that was free from Google would be a game changer for my life.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

chuck — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:03:39 -0000

the simpler reason is that google has an enormous cash cow right now in search ads. they can afford to make their web services free in hopes for returns later. if they say that's not the reason, then they would have to have the same approach when their operating margins are under greater pressure.

as for amazon not giving their stuff away, look at their operating margins- they can't afford to do that and not have the shareholders revolt. it's naive to ignore the business reality that amazon can't behave like google.

if one were to argue... "that before they(google) had search ads they gave away search". big deal, lots of startups give away stuff to get going. that lasts as long as the affordability of the money allows it. in a startup's context, *money* is VC money, in google's case money is the future cash flows from a dominant share in a high margin, highly scaleable business.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Folknology — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:00:35 -0000

I certainly think they need to do something like this to take on Amazon and potentially Microhoo.

I am not sure however how they can manage free. Free would make them a real target for the less than scrupulous operators. If Google offered free EC2 instances, spam networks would be pulling up spam email/blog/bot servers faster than Google could shut them down. I mean look at Blogger for an example of free becomes spamsville.

It will certainly be interesting to see what they do, and competition is always a good thing for the market.
regards
Al

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Colin Faulkingham — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:37:00 -0000

Acquisitions, recruiting and training? I am not so sure about that. It seems like that would be a really,really soft ROI. From my perspective I can think of a couple of few applications that could be written for my company that would benefit from the performance, stability and simplicity of the Google Cloud. It's the everyday applications that small and mid-size business use that is the real pot of gold.

Why is it Gold? Because it transfers control from Microsoft DNA to Google DNA for the most part. If the hypothetical service is offered in the same manner as the "Google Apps" for you domains where free means ad's vs paying not to see ads, then Google wins either way.Even if the service is free and they don't show ad's then Google wins because there are weaking Microsoft ability to catch up.

BTW,
The company I work for (400+ employees) is also a paying customer for Google App's for your domain, we also own a couple of Google Minis and use Google Base, Google Maps, Google Analytics , Google AdWords, Google Webmasters Tools, Google Search etc.. It's getting to be a large part of our DNA.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

malatmals — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:53:40 -0000

what if you play in the open social sandbox? won't there be free APIs, data portability, etc? the cost at most your ad ridden privacy...? maybe I'm dreaming when I should be dreaming 5:50 am - ouch.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

1223489234423 — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:45:41 -0000

If I went off on a tangent, please excuse me. I was responding to this section of your post: "...I don't see why Amazon charges me to use AWS. I think I produce as much value for them as I use just by writing about it but they haven't been willing to bend...If there was no cost to it, I'd use their services..."

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

jon bradford — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:17:42 -0000

In Dave's original post - he did say ...

"For a guy like you, a blogger, with modest needs, it would be free."

So do we have a free "Standard Apps" version and a paid for "Premium Apps"?

They didn't following Yahoo with unlimited emails, so for modest usage "have a play" GWS might be free for professional apps - pay for it.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

agawley — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:16:05 -0000

Some of the value to Amazon of charging a _nominal_ fee must come in the form of 'Spam' reduction (or whatever the application equivalent of Spam is. Like the listing fee on eBay?

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

dave — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:07:27 -0000

Did you read the post you're supposedly responding to?

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

1223489234423 — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:59:14 -0000

What would be AWS' incentive for providing all those services for free? Amused bloggers would not drive traffic to Amazon.com, they'd send developers to AWS. If AWS' goal is altruism, what is Amazon.com's incentive for paying AWS' bills? I don't know at what point Cluetrain draws the line between giving stuff away and charging for it. But a good example here is FPS; in many transactions, AWS incurs merchant fees when it brokers payments between customers. It may not even be legal for FPS to eat those transaction fees if they wanted to. Mturk transaction fees are low considering the advantage requesters have to tap sweatshop level resources programmatically. The Fulfillment web service is already free; it seems unlikely Amazon.com would consider eating the warehouse labor (picking, packing, and shipping) costs it currently passes on to registered FBA merchants. I only read today's post - maybe your purview is just the data storage services: s3, ec2, sqs, simpledb. If so I take your point--but remember AWS has no real competition yet. When competition arrives, AWS can always lower its fee structures to undercut Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. Until then, what is AWS' incentive to give away a service commodity in which they currently enjoy a monopoly? I don't know what projects you're considering; not every project is right for AWS, but many are.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

dave — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:57:22 -0000

Isn't that what Yahoo uses?

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Nat Torkington — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:55:41 -0000

Hi, Dave. I think Hadoop is the "get the world using our platform" play. They've done work in universities, giving away a few machines in a cluster running Hadoop and offering course materials for an "intro to distributed systems" that use the open source version of their tools.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

John — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:51:28 -0000

I found your comment about Apple amusing. Apple wants to control the end user experience. some people don't like the idea of "control" but actually I'd rather see a load of quality apps than have to wade through thousands of crap ones

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

Einar Vollset — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:24:01 -0000

The problem with free, is that then I'd use 100000 machines for my map reduce jobs and 10000 machines to crawl; in effect Google would be handing over a large chunk of its competitive advantage.

Re: Why would Google Web Services cost $0? (Scripting News)

m0nty — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:31:03 -0000

"I don't see why Amazon charges me to use AWS. I think I produce as much value for them as I use just by writing about it"

Pay Per Post?