This isn't rent seeking, it's called sales. You may not like it, but it's how the world works and what puts food on our tables.
The problem I see with vendor lock-in is when, after you're locked, the service provider exploit this to change their terms (price and/or else) in a disproportionate and unjustifiable way against your initial interests in the service.
This never happened with AWS, to my knowledge (please correct if I'm wrong). Everyone knew the price when they subscribed. Little changed afterwards. AWS was able to meet a demand with quality enough products in an acceptable price to whoever decided to buy.
This is a commercial transaction. They're tremendously successful at marketing, sales and delivering, and that's OK. They don't have to be ashamed of that, there's nothing immoral or "rent-seeking" here. They're providing a service and selling it honestly, with transparent and predictable prices.
Lock-in exploitation happened with GCP at least once, that I know, with App Engine. And their service was doomed after that, as developers reacted against their practice and they weren't able to grow past a tiny fraction of the market.
> The problem I see with vendor lock-in is when, after you're locked, the service provider exploit this to change their terms (price and/or else) in a disproportionate and unjustifiable way against your initial interests in the service.
> This never happened with AWS, to my knowledge (please correct if I'm wrong). Everyone knew the price when they subscribed. Little changed afterwards. AWS was able to meet a demand with quality enough products in an acceptable price to whoever decided to buy.
Vendor lock-in does not require any changes to terms, price, or any part of the service or product provided. In most classically studied cases of vendor lock-in (e.g., Microsoft Windows and Office binary formats, VHS vs. Beta), everyone knew the lack of interoperability when they bought the service/good, and nothing changed afterwards. That didn't stop those cases from becoming "vendor lock-in".
I totally agree that lock-in is there. What I'm disputing is that AWS has exploited it maliciously to screw their customers. More specifically, this statement:
> AWS was fucking everyone on egress price and nobody could do anything about it
I disagree because AWS has been transparent with their prices since day one. Everyone who subscribed was aware of how much it cost. AWS didn't screw anyone by increasing prices after they were locked-in.
Would you argue that AWS, for instance, is a company that produces no new value?
One might argue they add value, but their price is too high for the value they add. We'd go back to what I've said before: value perceived by a service is subjective and highly dependent on the context.
Clearly AWS provides a valuable and ongoing service with ongoing costs. I'd contend that the rent seeking aspect would be the difference between AWS's barest bones hosting and their more advanced/expensive offerings once that software (mostly) stops updating. There's not much difference between rent seeking and amortization.
The problem I see with vendor lock-in is when, after you're locked, the service provider exploit this to change their terms (price and/or else) in a disproportionate and unjustifiable way against your initial interests in the service.
This never happened with AWS, to my knowledge (please correct if I'm wrong). Everyone knew the price when they subscribed. Little changed afterwards. AWS was able to meet a demand with quality enough products in an acceptable price to whoever decided to buy.
This is a commercial transaction. They're tremendously successful at marketing, sales and delivering, and that's OK. They don't have to be ashamed of that, there's nothing immoral or "rent-seeking" here. They're providing a service and selling it honestly, with transparent and predictable prices.
Lock-in exploitation happened with GCP at least once, that I know, with App Engine. And their service was doomed after that, as developers reacted against their practice and they weren't able to grow past a tiny fraction of the market.