Live data from Hacker News

AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

freetier.co

21–30 of 50 posts

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#21
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they'll say their favorite line which is that it can be very disruptive to customers for them to stop the spend, how could they possibly know what to stop in your account?? Always easy to find reasons to explain something when the result is more money for you.

Once they need to stop your spending, the following has to happen - VMs deleted, along with all the files on them - S3 buckets emptied - DNS queries no longer getting answered - Databases dropped, backups deleted This is not just something disruptive that can be fixed by spending money again. Even if you stop customer traffic, all these resources are still used and cost money. For a professional account this is insan…

Why?

>- VMs deleted, along with all the files on them

VMs shut down, deleted after a specified time period (7 days, whatever, the exact time period doesn't matter)

>- S3 buckets emptied

S3 buckets no longer accessible, emptied after a specified time period

>- DNS queries no longer getting answered

Yep, fine

>- Databases dropped, backups deleted

Database access revoked, backup access revoked, deleted after a specified time period.

There is no reason this has to be an immediate deletion. Heck, even if you request they delete something they probably don't do it immediately and just mark it "deleted" until it's cleaned up after time.

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#23
post #3

No more running on free tier forever. "6-month maximum duration".

But you never could? The free tier has always ended after 12 months.

Hm. Does the "always free" tier remain free after 6 months? [1] Or do you have to pay something to keep the account alive?

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/free/database/?p=ft&z=subnav&...

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#24
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have a “solo-dev tier” be free forever… i could see a $10/month sub being a thing, but free forever... cmon, you know ppl would abuse the hell outta that.

GCP manages to do it, AWS are just greedy and bad at DX

is the GCP free tier in the room with us now?

in all seriousness, would love a link.

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GCP manages to do it, AWS are just greedy and bad at DX

is the GCP free tier in the room with us now? in all seriousness, would love a link.

Not many people know this, but Google also makes a search engine!

https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#compu...

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is the GCP free tier in the room with us now? in all seriousness, would love a link.

Not many people know this, but Google also makes a search engine! https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#compu...

is the word "forever" in the fine-print somewhere?

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many people know this, but Google also makes a search engine! https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#compu...

is the word "forever" in the fine-print somewhere?

> The Free Tier has no end date, but Google reserves the right to change the offering, including changing or eliminating usage limits, subject to 30 days advance notice.

It's been available for as long as I can remember GCP existing. Obviously no company will or even could guarantee something like this will be provided forever.

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#29
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they'll say their favorite line which is that it can be very disruptive to customers for them to stop the spend, how could they possibly know what to stop in your account?? Always easy to find reasons to explain something when the result is more money for you.

Once they need to stop your spending, the following has to happen - VMs deleted, along with all the files on them - S3 buckets emptied - DNS queries no longer getting answered - Databases dropped, backups deleted This is not just something disruptive that can be fixed by spending money again. Even if you stop customer traffic, all these resources are still used and cost money. For a professional account this is insan…

If the only choices are "my data gets deleted", or "$1,000 dollar bill", I think most students would choose data deleted.

And the whole "we are nice, we will waive bills for beginners who make mistakes" is in my experience, as a computing professor who has had multiple students hit this, not true. They seem to do waive fairly randomly to my eye, about a third of the time.

Re: AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025

#30
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they'll say their favorite line which is that it can be very disruptive to customers for them to stop the spend, how could they possibly know what to stop in your account?? Always easy to find reasons to explain something when the result is more money for you.

Once they need to stop your spending, the following has to happen - VMs deleted, along with all the files on them - S3 buckets emptied - DNS queries no longer getting answered - Databases dropped, backups deleted This is not just something disruptive that can be fixed by spending money again. Even if you stop customer traffic, all these resources are still used and cost money. For a professional account this is insan…

None of those things need to happen. (Unless you get billed by the individual DNS query?) The cost of storing things that already exist is known perfectly in advance. It is trivial to include the cost of "maintain everything until the end of the month" in your estimate of how much the customer has already spent. Then, when the spending halt occurs, nothing needs to be deleted because that was already accounted for.
Post reply on HN