Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by wongarsu » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:24 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #208

wongarsu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly why they should be banned to keep the market overall healthy. Preventing deceptive practices in a market economy this is a prime example of useful government "intervention", just like supporting contract enforcement or preventing theft

They can always justify it as not knowing the price. The sales tax rate is different in different places. It costs a different amount to ship to Florida than Alaska and picking it up at the factory is free (even if nobody does). The advertised price is if you have your own modem, renting one from the cable company is more. None of these are inherently wrong. You should be paying more if you're having it shipped to a…

There are some cases where not knowing the price is reasonable. As you say, shipping can often only be calculated if you know all items and their destination. If you advertise on national TV you can't name a price that includes sales price (unless the company eats the difference). But these could be treated as tightly regulated necessary evils, not as a justification that showing final prices is always impossible.

There is no reason you can't show final price including tax on the label in a physical shop. There is no reason why a restaurant should be able to charge a 20% service charge instead of increasing regular prices by 20%. If you are buying a concert ticket or airline ticket the displayed price should include all mandatory fees. They can upsell you on additional services, but they can't suddenly notice in the last checkout step that your price is higher because the website you are using is charging a fee; that fee was known to them at the beginning of the transaction and should have to be disclosed at that point in time at the latest. If you want to go even further you can also dictate that shipping and handling fees are only allowed to include reasonable costs of actual shipping and handling.

All of these are normal common-sense regulations in most first-world countries.

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

#222

Post by evilduck » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

acchow wrote: post #212

015a wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the only instance class that's on Emerald Rapids. So if you want the best that Intel has to offer, you need to adopt hyperdisks. But, to be clear: We're not.

Curious what the use case is for targeting a specific CPU. These are virtual CPUs anyways, so what benefit does using the latest intel chip offer?

Sometimes the instruction sets change (like the relatively recently added AVX10 extensions) and you have a workload that specifically needs those? I'm just guessing though.

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

#223

Post by autoexecbat » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #181

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…

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...

Is this just restaurants?

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

#224

Post by williamstein » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

matroid wrote: post #168

thundergolfer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lambda Labs has on-demand GPUs. Just put in a credit card and you're able to launch. I launched an 1x H100 server just 10 minutes ago on Lambda Labs. The price is also $2.49/hr which does not seem predatory at all.

I have never seen 1x H100 available on Lambda Labs. Don't know why though.

I've been checking about twice a week for the last 6 months, and they are very rare, but it does happen. I caught one on video 2 weeks ago! https://youtu.be/NkNx6tx3nu0?t=744

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

#225

Post by dheera » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #178

dheera wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need laws that allow customers to set a legally-binding max spend per month on any service, after which it's upto the company to suspend services. This should apply to everything -- cloud compute, healthcare, phone bills, internet services, everything.

You sort of have that already in the US for health, its tied to your insurance and its called max out of pocket. Of course it only applies to covered services, and insurance companies and medical providers don't necessarily make it simple to know what is and is not covered (though it IS improving). If you plan on seeking medical services without going through insurance, the ACA requires providers to provide you with…

> its tied to your insurance and its called max out of pocket

F that, if I paid for insurance I shouldn't have to pay anything out of pocket

> If you plan on seeking medical services without going through insurance, the ACA requires providers to provide you with a good faith estimate upfront.

F that, if there is any out of pocket payments at all, I should be entitled to estimates even WITH insurance and they should be legally mandated to be within 5% of the actual cost.

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

#226

Post by vel0city » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:31 PM UTC

silverquiet wrote: post #198

pjlegato wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

Have you considered perhaps that because I live in Texas, I know a bit more about those programs than you who have just googled and linked the top results? And that perhaps because I live in Texas, I indeed have issues with Texas (still a part of America in spite of the wishes of some on the right wing)? From your own article (I knew this stat would be in there): > Currently, Texas leads the nation in the number of u…

> Why do you think so many are uninsured if it is so simple for them to get health coverage?

High numbers of people who have illegally immigrated and are worried about getting into programs subsidized by the government which might result in questions about residency status leading to deportation?

High rates of misinformation surrounding the costs of insurance and availability of welfare programs in the state?

I just looked up getting a plan in Texas. 40 year old male non-smoker in Texas earning $45k/yr can get insurance for $128/mo. They're eligible for an HSA, so they can put tax-free savings that roll over every year into an investment account to help cover the $7,400 deductible. PCP and preventative care visits are free. Generic drugs are $10. Urgent care out of pocket is $160. Other plans have slightly higher premiums but much lower deductibles, some have different co-pays.

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

#227

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #221

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can always justify it as not knowing the price. The sales tax rate is different in different places. It costs a different amount to ship to Florida than Alaska and picking it up at the factory is free (even if nobody does). The advertised price is if you have your own modem, renting one from the cable company is more. None of these are inherently wrong. You should be paying more if you're having it shipped to a…

There are some cases where not knowing the price is reasonable. As you say, shipping can often only be calculated if you know all items and their destination. If you advertise on national TV you can't name a price that includes sales price (unless the company eats the difference). But these could be treated as tightly regulated necessary evils, not as a justification that showing final prices is always impossible. Th…

> There is no reason you can't show final price including tax on the label in a physical shop.

Sure there is. When the price label is affixed by the factory/warehouse then you would have to track where everything is going and be unable to share inventory. Also, if the sales tax rate changes then all the labels become wrong. These would ultimately increase costs for consumers.

Adding sales tax is also not at all misleading because the customer is not going to be surprised by it and there isn't going to be a competing merchant across the street who can avoid charging it.

There are also business customers with their own sales tax ID and they can buy things without paying sales tax when they're being incorporated into a product where they collect the sales tax themselves.

> There is no reason why a restaurant should be able to charge a 20% service charge instead of increasing regular prices by 20%.

This is actually true. A mandatory undisclosed fee is BS. But it doesn't help much, because if they want to do it then they just make it "optional" where the way to avoid it is more of an inconvenience than paying the fee.

> They can upsell you on additional services, but they can't suddenly notice in the last checkout step that your price is higher because the website you are using is charging a fee; that fee was known to them at the beginning of the transaction and should have to be disclosed at that point in time at the latest.

The last step is where you disclose your address. Before that they may not even know which country you're in, much less the city/state, and there are a thousand legitimate reasons to have different prices or fees in different jurisdictions.

> If you want to go even further you can also dictate that shipping and handling fees are only allowed to include reasonable costs of actual shipping and handling.

That doesn't really help, they're typically charging the actual cost. They just don't include it in the advertised price because it makes you inclined to make the purchase online instead of saving $10 by picking it up for the same price but no shipping charge the next time you go to the competing local store.

There's a reason Amazon's major competitive advantage is free two day shipping, derived from having the scale to achieve low shipping costs themselves.

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

#228

Post by hot_gril » Mon, May 06, 2024, 9:44 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #186

fffrantz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can rent the space, but you still have to buy the hardware. Maybe there's money to be made running some low-availability cloud service offering newer hardware.

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

#229

Post by heavyset_go » Mon, May 06, 2024, 10:00 PM UTC

pjlegato wrote: post #144

silverquiet wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say that my response to "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you're billed" is basically, "well I guess we'll see if I can pay it then". You sort of start asking yourself, "what if I just don't pay?". I have a (deadbeat) buddy who's entire medical plan is essentially to give a fake name to the ER, and if you're poor in America, what else can you do?

> 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…

Medicaid wasn't expanded in several states with tens of millions of people living in them[1]. For example, in Texas, nobody is eligible for Medicaid based solely on their income alone.

Where Medicaid is expanded, the income requirements for Medicaid are far from sane. If you make over 100% to 138% of the federal poverty line, which is $15,060/year for an individual, you are not eligible for coverage. For example, someone who makes $16k to $21k a year, depending on where they live, is ineligible for coverage despite making poverty wages.

[1] https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/issue-brief/status-o...

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

#230

Post by cogman10 » Mon, May 06, 2024, 10:01 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #227

wongarsu wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some cases where not knowing the price is reasonable. As you say, shipping can often only be calculated if you know all items and their destination. If you advertise on national TV you can't name a price that includes sales price (unless the company eats the difference). But these could be treated as tightly regulated necessary evils, not as a justification that showing final prices is always impossible. Th…

> There is no reason you can't show final price including tax on the label in a physical shop. Sure there is. When the price label is affixed by the factory/warehouse then you would have to track where everything is going and be unable to share inventory. Also, if the sales tax rate changes then all the labels become wrong. These would ultimately increase costs for consumers. Adding sales tax is also not at all misle…

> When the price label is affixed by the factory/warehouse then you would have to track where everything is going and be unable to share inventory.

Price tags are pretty much universally handled at the stores. There are some goods where the price tag is attached, but that's more the exception and not the rule.

This is a solvable problem. So much so that if you've traveled in most nations you'll see that all prices include tax. Not including tax is a particularly weird aspect of US culture that simply doesn't exist in other nations, even those with a large amount of imported goods.