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Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

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Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#161

Post by sgjohnson »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #139
sgjohnson wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Apple not giving a shit what volume you’re buying, the price is the price. Maybe the rules are a bit different for Amazon, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Based on what? https://www.apple.com/us-hed/store https://images.apple.com/business-docs/VPP_Business_Guide.pd... https://www.apple.com/retail/business/ > Our Small Business Experts are ready to help. They’ll advise you on the devices to fit your budget, including special pricing,* and find you the best financing option. All backed by ongoing support to give you much-needed peace of mind. > * Special pricing availabl…

The point was that it’s a marginal discount. I never said that there’s no discount.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#162

Post by unbanned »

withinrafael wrote: post #74
ecshafer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously under NDA. I don't even understand why someone would open up this issue. How is Github complying with Mac os license? The obvious answer is that Github worked something out with Apple, that would then be secret. Github (Microsoft) has many lawyers under their employ that would have looked at this, said if their implementation breaks the license, or they came up with an alternative license with Apple. I…

I opened the issue because when I spun up a macOS runner, it was not requiring me to "review and agree to be bound by the terms applicable to any software preinstalled on the Apple Software [...]" per the terms. Was I somehow implicitly bound by them? I was not comfortable with that legal risk and figured I'd ask the awkward question.

More likely you just wanted to gotcha at Microsoft to make yourself look smart... just being nitpicky and awkward is how it looks.

Judging by your blog, this doesn't seem far from the truth.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#163

Post by tedivm »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

I'm honestly at the point where I assume the AWS Console is awful on purpose as a way to drive people towards infrastructure as code. It's just so awful that it can't be on purpose (I hope).

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#164

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

kovek wrote: post #156
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

I just learned that I need to pay aws 400$ for last month. I was thinking it would be 50$.

It's a very special kind of evil. They can always argue it's your fault, because you haven't read something, you misunderstood something. There are even stories circulating of people who lost their life savings by mistake but the AWS team charitably decided they will forgive them just this time, how nice of them!

Everybody knows it's complex to their advantage, they are not stupid - but they can always defend themselves using the flexibility card. I don't believe a class action would ever happen.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#165

Post by whalesalad »

bstar77 wrote: post #158
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #138

Every time I look at the AWS prices page or at its control panel, I feel like I need to get a special advanced degree to understand a thing.

After my experience 3 years ago, I will never use them again. I priced out an instance that estimated around $30/month via their calculator. Instance is indeed around $30 for the first 2 months, then I get a $200 bill. I don't know what the hell happened, but it was over 6x what I had budgeted. I tried to get someone to review my account, but I didn't get a response and just had to suck it up. I paid the $200 and mov…

The disk you attach to an instance is not free, and capacity/performance characteristics dictate price.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#166

Post by hoffspot »

monocasa wrote: post #48
dougmwne wrote: post #20

It’s an interesting look at AWS pricing since the cost of the M1 Mac Mini ($699) and it’s power consumption (avg 26 watts) are known. Based on hardware costs (significant) and power costs (insignificant) you’re looking at a hardware ROI at about 6 months from the $.65 per hour price. AWS has an estimated 60% gross profit margin, so from there it’s probably possible to estimate some other interesting things about thei…

There's a rumor going around that they're heavily discounting arm64 instances in order to put negotiating pressure on the x86 manufacturers. 'Nice arch you have there, would be a shame if people stopped caring.' I would be careful about estimating beyond how they view arm64 given that these are the highest perf/core arm64 devices they can put their hands on.

I think they are providing those discounts to promote their own silicon, the Graviton3 chip. You definitely get an execution discount in Lambda for selecting arm versus x86 on that basis.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#167

Post by mike_d »

jefftk wrote: post #132
mike_d wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are thinking of a NSL (National Security Letter). I've never seen an NDA that compelled secrecy regarding the agreement itself.

It is definitely a thing, and I may or may not have signed one

Sorry I should have been more explicit. I've seen all sorts of dumb shit in NDAs. What I meant to say was I've never seen that kind of language in an NDA drafted by a decent lawyer that expected it to be enforceable.

Competent legal council would have the whole thing invalidated because you cannot mount a legal defense to a document you can't acknowledge the existence of in open court. Judges only let that stuff fly when you risk human life or judicial process, not in civil cases.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#168

Post by stillicidious »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #157
jedberg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are entire consulting businesses based on the idea of helping people understand their AWS bill. But I'm not sure what the tradeoff is. They have a lot of services with a lot of options. The pricing is designed to meet everyone's needs.

> The pricing is designed to meet everyone's needs. That's a surprisingly charitable interpretation.

It's a valid one. Engineering teams work with AWS kinda in the same way mass market 90s C code was written. They get it running, but boy are there huge leaks and crashes hiding in plain sight.

From that perspective, I think it might be ok to say that most eng folk complaining about AWS billing need a safer language (higher level abstraction) where they are protected from causing harm or being harmed.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#169

Post by GhettoComputers »

sgjohnson wrote: post #161
GhettoComputers wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what? https://www.apple.com/us-hed/store https://images.apple.com/business-docs/VPP_Business_Guide.pd... https://www.apple.com/retail/business/ > Our Small Business Experts are ready to help. They’ll advise you on the devices to fit your budget, including special pricing,* and find you the best financing option. All backed by ongoing support to give you much-needed peace of mind. > * Special pricing availabl…

The point was that it’s a marginal discount. I never said that there’s no discount.

> Based on Apple not giving a shit what volume you’re buying, the price is the price.

That isn’t what you said.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#170

Post by oblio »

nojito wrote: post #152
JCM9 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really not looking at the math in the right way for those that are the target market. If you just want an M1 instance just because sure just go buy one and keep in plugged in all the time in your basement. That’s not the target market. Imagine you’re developing an app in regulated market and need to have Macs for CI/CD There’s a lot more to this than just keeping some Mac mini’s under your desk. How are you m…

Apple already offers this for Devs. https://developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud/

If you're already using AWS it's a no-brainer to avoid a second vendor if you don't have to use them for other reasons.
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