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Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

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Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#181

Post by jonahhorowitz »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #52
ryandrake wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. It feels weirdly similar to the US healthcare/insurance situation. Not just the healthcare situation, but everything. There's nothing much more stereotypically American than "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you're billed." Dozens of little fees on you…

People complain about this relentlessly, but never change. Additionally, every single business owner I know complains that whatever it is they're selling, (1) it isn't worth the brain damage to sell to customers looking for the lowest price, (2) as long as people comparison shop in a harebrained way, hook pricing (aka up front pricing that looks low and turns out high) is only rational. It's not like they're providin…

California gets a lot of flack for having too much regulation, but this change is very welcome for consumers.

No more junk fees in CA.

- https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/sf-restaurants-junk-fees...

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#182

Post by robertlagrant »

balls187 wrote: post #174
apitman wrote: post #22

Over the weekend a coworker was helping someone in our lab prepare data for an important conference talk. We accidentally ran up a rather large bill because while the EFS storage pricing was simple enough, the usage pricing bit us. It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. It feels weirdly similar to the US healthcare/…

> It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. Complicated cost calculations are only a part of the issue. You (or your team) also have fault in that you did not take the time to understand the costs associated with your decisions and not utilize AWS cost management capabilities (that is assuming you did get a surprise bi…

Well, all the infra people did this too, just earlier.

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#183

Post by Thrymr »

Onawa wrote: post #66
Gbox4 wrote: post #43

A funny comment from that article: "On CoreWeave, renting an Nvidia A100 40GB — one popular choice for model training and inferencing — costs $2.39 per hour, which works out to $1,200 per month. On Azure, the same GPU costs $3.40 per hour, or $2,482 per month; on Google Cloud, it’s $3.67 per hour, or $2,682 per month." Am I missing something? I am sure I'm a bit rusty in math, but I can still handle a calculator. ~72…

I think your guess of AI generation makes sense for the math discrepancy.

Wonderful that we have evolved large linear algebra models running on expensive computers to the point that they can no longer do basic arithmetic correctly.

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#184

Post by krisoft »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #52
ryandrake wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. It feels weirdly similar to the US healthcare/insurance situation. Not just the healthcare situation, but everything. There's nothing much more stereotypically American than "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you're billed." Dozens of little fees on you…

People complain about this relentlessly, but never change. Additionally, every single business owner I know complains that whatever it is they're selling, (1) it isn't worth the brain damage to sell to customers looking for the lowest price, (2) as long as people comparison shop in a harebrained way, hook pricing (aka up front pricing that looks low and turns out high) is only rational. It's not like they're providin…

> People complain about this relentlessly, but never change

What do you mean by this? How would “people change” to get out of resort fees or confusing pricing systems?

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#185

Post by notaustinpowers »

dangrossman wrote: post #176
notaustinpowers wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obamacare is (largely) a failure due to insurance meddling and laws preventing government insurance programs from negotiating prices with drug companies. I'm a healthy individual, not even 30 yet, never smoked, never broken a bone, and never even had stitches in my life. And when I last checked their prices, I was making only $45k/yr. For coverage with Obamacare, I would be paying $350/month for the "catastrophic" pl…

Obamacare is not a plan, it's a law that set minimum standards for health insurance plans, created marketplaces to cross-shop plans across providers on a single website, and created a system where you can receive government subsidies towards their cost if your income is low enough. At $45K, you would receive subsidies towards your insurance premiums. I've bought my insurance on the ACA marketplace since it opened ten…

I use Obamacare in the rural southern way, referencing ACA and healthcare.gov, lol.

I'm also in Georgia which may have different regulations regarding the deductibles. I remember looking at the plans around 2 years ago and realizing that there was no way I could afford the premium, let alone the yearly deductible.

I just took another quick look at a non-Healthcare.gov site. Insurance for me would be $313/month with a $9,100 deductible. But it does not cover doctor visits, generic drugs, or specialist visits until after I pay the full $9,100.

Why would I want to pay $313/month for essentially no coverage until I spend 20% of my income towards a deductible before I see any benefits?

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#186

Post by amluto »

fffrantz wrote: post #119
fwip wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kubernetes is only the software layer, a lot of the cost is in the hardware/infrastructure, and in the salary for those experts.

Agreed 100 percent. Software is the easy part. Getting HVAC, power and network up to the levels of cloud providers is difficult to get right and prohibitively expensive. For instance, the cost for a pair of redundant symmetric gigabit fiber is in the thousands a month and may require tens of thousands of construction costs. These quickly add up, and the upfront costs can quickly reach six figures.

There’s a huge middle ground between on-prem and GCP/AWS. You can rent space and connectivity from in very competent datacenter without any of these big fixed costs.

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#187

Post by pjlegato »

silverquiet wrote: post #170
pjlegato wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give a fake name to the ER, and if you're poor in America, what else can you do? The American government spends something approaching a trillion dollars annually on Medicaid, "a government program that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources."[1] Seperately, Obamacare[2] created a private health insurance market where low income people can obtain free or heavily discounte…

We live in Texas.

Sounds like your issue is with Texas, then, not with America.

Why perpetuate crude and inaccurate stereotypes that smear and disparage America in general? America is spending a huge amount of money every year precisely on providing healthcare for the poor.

Besides which, it looks like Medicaid does indeed operate in Texas, which is discoverable in less than 10 seconds of Internet searching: https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/health/medicaid-chip/abou...

And, seperately, Obamacare's marketplace works nationally, including in Texas: "More Texans than ever before enrolled in ACA health plans in 2024"[1]

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/24/texas-aca-health-ins...

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#188

Post by joshstrange »

krisoft wrote: post #184
doctorpangloss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about this relentlessly, but never change. Additionally, every single business owner I know complains that whatever it is they're selling, (1) it isn't worth the brain damage to sell to customers looking for the lowest price, (2) as long as people comparison shop in a harebrained way, hook pricing (aka up front pricing that looks low and turns out high) is only rational. It's not like they're providin…

> People complain about this relentlessly, but never change What do you mean by this? How would “people change” to get out of resort fees or confusing pricing systems?

I believe they are saying that people fall for the hook pricing and won't go with an alternative that is upfront about their price (because it looks higher). If companies aren't rewarded for doing the "right" thing then why would they do it?

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#189

Post by jameshart »

ryandrake wrote: post #41
apitman wrote: post #22

Over the weekend a coworker was helping someone in our lab prepare data for an important conference talk. We accidentally ran up a rather large bill because while the EFS storage pricing was simple enough, the usage pricing bit us. It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. It feels weirdly similar to the US healthcare/…

> It seems like AWS' entire business model is making the pricing so confusing that you don't know what it will cost until after you've used it. It feels weirdly similar to the US healthcare/insurance situation. Not just the healthcare situation, but everything. There's nothing much more stereotypically American than "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you're billed." Dozens of little fees on you…

Then pay for it with a credit card that gives you a random amount of cash back, and pay your credit card bill using your tax refund that came as a nice surprise at the end of the year, because you over withheld all year so you don’t actually even know what your real take home pay is supposed to be.

No wonder Americans have no idea how the economy is doing.

Re: Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs

#190

Post by vanviegen »

krisoft wrote: post #184
doctorpangloss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about this relentlessly, but never change. Additionally, every single business owner I know complains that whatever it is they're selling, (1) it isn't worth the brain damage to sell to customers looking for the lowest price, (2) as long as people comparison shop in a harebrained way, hook pricing (aka up front pricing that looks low and turns out high) is only rational. It's not like they're providin…

> People complain about this relentlessly, but never change What do you mean by this? How would “people change” to get out of resort fees or confusing pricing systems?

Vote for politicians that haven't been bought by big corp (yet).
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