Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#141

Post by jacobr1 » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

drucik wrote: post #132

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything. Even if that were true, so what? Some customers are willing to trade less features for less money. It doesn't matter that other features are present but disabled. Those customers got exactly what they paid for. They're not getting cheaped out on.

One thing is trading features for money, the other is artificially crippling the product just so you can release a cheaper version. For what, to justify unreasonably high price for complete version? The second part sounds kinda like “They don’t know they got screwed, so it’s completely fine”.

This is like the trolley problem of software licensing:

Scenario 1: Product has 3 features at x Price. New license is created with 4 features at price x+y

Scenario 2: Product has 3 features at x+y Price. Slimmed down license is created for a product 3 features at x price.

People applaud the former order, and cringe at the latter, but (at least in this artificial description, after the second option is available, the scenarios are equivalent. But something about loss aversion seems to trigger a moral sentiment.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#142

Post by Ididntdothis » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

celticmusic wrote: post #128

Ididntdothis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish.” If it only were that easy to move to Core. I thought I could sneak that transition into a few projects but there are a ton of little obstacles that make such an effort lots of work.

yep, which is why they should be working on it now. The fact that you can target .net standard with framework means TODAY you can sequester your framework specific things behind DLL's and put everything else on .net core officially. I honestly think there's going to be a huge consulting/freelance market for it soon. I wasn't trying to imply that it's easy, just that everyone should be planning out how to do it so the…

The other option is to stick to what works and see if MS change strategy again as they seem to be doing very few years.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#143

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #131

toomuchtodo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If properly licensed, it’s still open source. Free as in speech, not as in beer.

According to most peoples definitions if you can't do what you please with it or make a derivative product and do what you please with THAT I cannot imagine why you believe its free as in speech anymore.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#144

Post by drucik » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

ZeroBugBounce wrote: post #102

drucik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything. There used to be this belief that things are worth as much as the cost to produce them + some margin for the maker. And things were made so they will benefit their consumers. Unfortunately more and more companies these days look for ways to get not what something is worth but to get from consumers as much as possible, to squeeze them like lem…

It's a business decision which will make them more money. In Universe A they sell only the most powerful version of the product for 1x price and them make some money. In Universe B they sell the most powerful for 1x AND a slightly less powerful version for 0.9x price and they make MORE overall profit. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. There are customers who will want to pay less and not need the most powerful produ…

If the less powerful costs the same to make and is just crippled full version, then for me it’s not ethical and calling it a choice is a farce.

Btw obviously I’m not talking about software. Im not talking about pricing things with no marginal cost.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#145

Post by drucik » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #134

drucik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything. There used to be this belief that things are worth as much as the cost to produce them + some margin for the maker. And things were made so they will benefit their consumers. Unfortunately more and more companies these days look for ways to get not what something is worth but to get from consumers as much as possible, to squeeze them like lem…

The marginal cost is next to zero, but the cost is certainly not. As to what something is worth, surely the cost of production is not the sole factor.

If you are pricing it at cost plus, yeah, it can be worth near-ish the cost of production. Not things with assosciated costs like rnd, but think some of spare parts, for example.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#146

Post by celticmusic » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #142

celticmusic wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, which is why they should be working on it now. The fact that you can target .net standard with framework means TODAY you can sequester your framework specific things behind DLL's and put everything else on .net core officially. I honestly think there's going to be a huge consulting/freelance market for it soon. I wasn't trying to imply that it's easy, just that everyone should be planning out how to do it so the…

The other option is to stick to what works and see if MS change strategy again as they seem to be doing very few years.

MS has not changed strategies since starting .net core. It's on v3, going on v4. If you're still unsure what the future is going to be, you've missed the boat.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#147

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

ZeroBugBounce wrote: post #102

drucik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything. There used to be this belief that things are worth as much as the cost to produce them + some margin for the maker. And things were made so they will benefit their consumers. Unfortunately more and more companies these days look for ways to get not what something is worth but to get from consumers as much as possible, to squeeze them like lem…

It's a business decision which will make them more money. In Universe A they sell only the most powerful version of the product for 1x price and them make some money. In Universe B they sell the most powerful for 1x AND a slightly less powerful version for 0.9x price and they make MORE overall profit. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. There are customers who will want to pay less and not need the most powerful produ…

"Moral" is a loaded word to throw in here. I wouldn't use that term. Customer-unfriendly etc. I think fit better. And if we're positing hypothetical universes, let's a Universe C: They give customers the faster version that doesn't cost them any more, and as a result they build more brand loyalty and good will, leading to more sales, market share, etc.

But profits are somewhat besides the point: I'm saying simply that some policies are not customer friendly. Whether or not you consider that to be good or bad may very well depend on whether you are a customer or a shareholder.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#148

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #134

drucik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything. There used to be this belief that things are worth as much as the cost to produce them + some margin for the maker. And things were made so they will benefit their consumers. Unfortunately more and more companies these days look for ways to get not what something is worth but to get from consumers as much as possible, to squeeze them like lem…

The marginal cost is next to zero, but the cost is certainly not. As to what something is worth, surely the cost of production is not the sole factor.

Cost of production is a big factor. Economic theory generally holds that in a competitive environment over a decent period of time, prices will fall to just about the marginal cost of production. Think of the commodification of the PC in the late 90's/early 00's. Highly competitive environment drove prices to just a hair over costs. However, at least one company, Apple, held a very customer-friendly stance (not to mention good marketing) and was able to charge a decent amount above that as a result. (In some ways the good marketing was spreading the message of their customer-friendly stance)

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#149

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #83

ineedasername wrote: post #69

In a situation like this, if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin in the long term, there's about two options: Change your cloud provider (to Azure) or change your platform (away from windows). It seems MS is betting there will be, on net, more people who take it on the chin &/or switch to Azure. But even if they're right, there will still be some loss of marketshare for those staying with AWS & ditch…

Or... people will just pay a bit more to MS and stay on AWS. It's not like AWS and Windows are for the cost conscious.

That's why I put in the beginning "if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin" caveat. Some will be willing to do so, and for good reason if they have workloads that really need windows and specific features of AWS. My point is simply that some people will abandon Windows, and I could be wrong but even if they have some revenue gain in the near term, losing a bit of market share is bad in the long term.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#150

Post by femto113 » Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #129

femto113 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This practice is a form of "bundling" in the antitrust sense, and while it is not inherently illegal different rules apply to such behaviors if you've been found to have monopoly powers.

It is not - it would be if they had a monopoly, but they clearly don't in this case.

They do have a monopoly on Windows licenses, and they are trying to leverage that to sell cloud hosting of Windows servers, which they do not have a monopoly on. In this case Microsoft's defense would probably be "Windows is not the only OS available", which may or may not be accepted by a government (it's gone both ways for them in the past).