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AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

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Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#121

Post by olyjohn »

goodcanadian wrote: post #98
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Done charitably, I think the mainframe model of shared compute does meet most person's needs where they don't need to care about latency. It would allow us to take advantage of economies of scale. The problem, imo, is that no one has an incentive to do this as a service , so it would turn into rent-seeking.

But I do care about latency . . . and I want things to still work when the wifi is dodgy. I already find things like Office 360 deeply frustrating (only use it for work).

You do, but most people don't. So not enough people will complain that it will make any difference. And the people who don't complain will just keep forking out money because they're addicted.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#122

Post by zwnow »

cpursley wrote: post #104
zwnow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> Landlord isn’t nearly as profitable as some people think.

I am aware of that, still doesnt stop people from speculation and therefor preventing others from buying.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#123

Post by 1980phipsi »

xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

> Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games but charging per hour. Imagine how that impact Call of Duty or GTA.

MMORPGs have had monthly subscription fees for a long time.

For a lot of games if they charged by the hour would probably see less revenue...people buy tons of games and then barely ever play them.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#124

Post by dominicrose »

XorNot wrote: post #38
haritha-j wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a resource allocation perspective, this doesn't feel particularly undesirable, at least in terms of certain assets like vehicles. The current system of ownership is quite wasteful. I own a high end GPU that I use maybe 4 hours a week for gaming.

If capitalism prices me out of owning property, then I've not much use for it.

Property prices are a big concern nowadays indeed, especially in high-demand areas. Complete (rich) strangers can come and outbid you.

In the most capitalist places (rich areas without rent control), you can rent a place for years trying to save money to buy in the area and see the rent grow fast enough that you can't buy and even have to leave as a renter.

Capitalism seems to work well for transportable things though, including cars. A house isn't transportable and it also tends to be something quite unique, which makes it incompatible with production in series. Even if you are somehow authorized and able to buy a cheap home, you still have the issue of the terrain, which can be more expensive than the home.

That being said I'm sure that there are people living on cheap (per square meter) terrain and happy about it, but that requires the ability to make the best of it, work on it or find work close to it.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#125

Post by miningape »

bogtog wrote: post #4

A few months ago, there was a lot of news lambasting tech companies for extending the depreciation lifespan of GPUs from ~3 years to ~5 years. Do these price hikes suggest a longer lifespan is probably the right way to see how long these GPUs will be valuable?

Not a finance guy, so fully prepared to be wrong here. But my interpretation is that an increase in price corresponds to a shorter lifespan. i.e. less time to make money so we need to charge more to get the same return over less time

It could also be a supply/demand issue, generally price increases are caused by either 1. demand increasing, or 2. supply decreasing.

In this case we can interpret a shorter lifespan as decreased supply, but it can also be because the demand for GPU compute has gone up. I think in this case we're seeing a bit of both, but it's hard to tell without more data.

We could also consider the supply / demand elasticity changing, f.x since demand has become more price inelastic it could result in a higher price.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#126

Post by TrackerFF »

dangus wrote: post #119
TrackerFF wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference is that if subscription goes up from $10 to $15, that doesn't seem to bad. But if you want to purchase a new computer, and the price goes from $1000 to $1500, then that's a pretty big deal. (Though in reality, the price of said computer would probably go up even more, minimum double. RAM prices are already up 6-8 fold from summer)

But if you finance the computer (not hard to get 0% financing on consumer electronics), the price goes from $41 a month to $62 a month. It’s the same difference.

For whatever reason, people are just more into paying for $10 / subscription fees, than they into financing stuff.

To such a degree that they able to pay for a bunch of subscriptions they completely forget about.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#127

Post by olyjohn »

pm90 wrote: post #51
xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

Its a market signal; we’re going to see a massive boom in investment (mostly from China, but still) in capacity expansion. Eventually the prices will stabilize.

Stabilize at an incredibly high price. Once they realize they can make more money selling high and producing less. I hate to say it, but the savings does not get passed on to the customer.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#128

Post by kllrnohj »

TrackerFF wrote: post #89
muvlon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how everyone arrives at that conclusion when the cost of the subscription services is also going up (as evidenced by the very article we're talking about). People who are renting are feeling this immediately, whereas people who bought their computers can wait the price hikes out for a couple years before they really need an upgrade.

Difference is that if subscription goes up from $10 to $15, that doesn't seem to bad. But if you want to purchase a new computer, and the price goes from $1000 to $1500, then that's a pretty big deal. (Though in reality, the price of said computer would probably go up even more, minimum double. RAM prices are already up 6-8 fold from summer)

Difference is subscriptions need to support IT staff, data centers, and profit margins. A computer under your desk at home has none of those support costs and it gets price competition from used parts which subscriptions don't have.

Cloud (storage, compute, whatever) has so far consistently been more expensive than local compute over even short timeframes (storage especially, I can buy a portable 2TB drive for the equivalent of one year of the entry level 2TB dropbox plan). These shortage spikes don't seem likely to change that? Especially since the ones feeling the most pressure to pay these inflated prices are the cloud providers that are causing the demand spike in the first place. Just like with previous demand spikes, as a consumer you have alternatives such as used or waiting it out. And in the meantime you can laugh at all your geforce now buddies who just got slapped with usage restrictions and overage fees.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#129

Post by SPICLK2 »

olyjohn wrote: post #113
SPICLK2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>home computers are replaced by thin clients Ah, but that's the genius of this circuit around the tech cycle. You need a "thick client" to access those subscription services, as running the (web) interface requires shameful amounts of RAM and CPU resources.

Not if the browser rendering is done in the cloud. All you're looking at is a screen on a server somewhere, not actually the one on your phone.

RDP is the future? Makes sense. It's been a while since money was poured into networking.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#130

Post by cpursley »

zwnow wrote: post #122
cpursley wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Landlord isn’t nearly as profitable as some people think. I am aware of that, still doesnt stop people from speculation and therefor preventing others from buying.

If you’re talking about the corporate landlords, yeah. But the real issue is we’re not creating enough housing of the correct type in the US (like missing middle). Only choices are either McMansions or “luxury” apartments that are made from cardboard.
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