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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

#421

Post by paodealho »

fooey wrote: post #332
therobots927 wrote: post #52

The price shock that’s about to hit the AI industry is gonna be very fun to watch.

I keep asking our product team what the plan is when our API/Infra costs eventually skyrocket and our AI features become unsustainable, but there's absolutely zero preparedness. We throw in all these cute little AI features to fill out marketing bullet points because they're basically free, but if they had real cost we're going to have no choice but to take them away.

Recently while interviewing for a SWE position, I was talking to the company's VP of engineering and expressed my concern over these LLM tools precisely because of the economics of it, because right now most if not all of these tools are being subsidized. Also, the environmental impact.

I was talking mainly about code generation tools, which can be completely shut down today without affecting production. Not even considering LLMs that are implemented in user facing features or customer service right now.

The guy's response: "oh but these things will surely get cheaper. Every technology gets cheaper with time. And about the environment, yeah... unfortunately there's not much we can do."

That's the level of forethought for a VP of engineering where I live.

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

#422

Post by therobots927 »

paodealho wrote: post #421
fooey wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep asking our product team what the plan is when our API/Infra costs eventually skyrocket and our AI features become unsustainable, but there's absolutely zero preparedness. We throw in all these cute little AI features to fill out marketing bullet points because they're basically free, but if they had real cost we're going to have no choice but to take them away.

Recently while interviewing for a SWE position, I was talking to the company's VP of engineering and expressed my concern over these LLM tools precisely because of the economics of it, because right now most if not all of these tools are being subsidized. Also, the environmental impact. I was talking mainly about code generation tools, which can be completely shut down today without affecting production. Not even con…

That’s the level of forethought encouraged by investors and the CEO in all likelihood. VPs are just doing their jobs. Even if they might agree with you, that sort of sentiment is a quick way to get you on the CEO / board’s bad side. The incentives are perfectly aligned to keep shoving air into this bubble for the time being.

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

#423

Post by bdangubic »

fooey wrote: post #332
therobots927 wrote: post #52

The price shock that’s about to hit the AI industry is gonna be very fun to watch.

I keep asking our product team what the plan is when our API/Infra costs eventually skyrocket and our AI features become unsustainable, but there's absolutely zero preparedness. We throw in all these cute little AI features to fill out marketing bullet points because they're basically free, but if they had real cost we're going to have no choice but to take them away.

What is the real AI cost at which point this is an issue for a corporation you think? I contract at a place that gives $1,000/month budget per SWE (5 Max accounts) and I am sure if the price was 10x that no one would even blink.

It is basically cost-benefit analysis just like with any other cost (and there is always option to revert to local?)

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

#424

Post by cortesoft »

usernameak wrote: post #351
Y_Y wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bank has an option to send me a notification every time I'm charged for something. I've noticed several bills that were higher than they should have been "due to a technical error". I'm certain some companies rely on people not checking and randomly add "errors". Notably there's no way (known to me) that you can have direct debits sent as requests that aren't automatically paid. I think that would put consumers on…

> My bank has an option to send me a notification every time I'm charged for something. Wait, your bank doesn't do that by default ? I've always assumed it's default behavior of most banks.

You had to opt in for my bank, and choose a minimum amount to be notified for. I chose $0, so I get notified for everything.

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

#425

Post by cortesoft »

SoftTalker wrote: post #379
usernameak wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My bank has an option to send me a notification every time I'm charged for something. Wait, your bank doesn't do that by default ? I've always assumed it's default behavior of most banks.

It's normally an option in my experience. I have mine set for charges over $100. I don't want a notification every time I buy gas (I do check my statements every month though).

What is the harm in being notified when you buy gas? It doesn’t hurt anything, and I DO want to be notified if someone else buys gas on my card!

The discussion started as a way to avoid forgetting to cancel subscriptions or to catch subscription price increases; if you are setting your limit to $100, you aren’t going to be seeing charges for almost all your subscriptions.

I have my minimum set to $0, so I see all the charges. Helpful reminder when I see a $8 charge for something I forgot to cancel.

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

#426

Post by vladvasiliu »

walthamstow wrote: post #378
vladvasiliu wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt that. I just checked the apple store page for an iphone 17. They try to sell me the larger storage model, they try to sell me apple care, but I don't see anything related to icloud. If I look at the pro, they try to sell me the max. The difference between a 512 GB and a 256 GB non-pro model is 250 Euros. The 200 GB icloud subscription (which, again, they don't talk about when buying an iphone) costs…

Apple is a consumer services company, it contributes the half of their profits, and storage is their most popular service. https://www.ft.com/content/3687fab7-3aea-4f81-9616-ed3d1f7be... > Services are on track to make up a quarter of Apple’s revenue but as much as 50 per cent of its profit, said JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, reflecting the “stickiness” of products such as recurring payments for iCloud storage.…

I think we're talking past each other. I never argued icloud wasn't popular or people didn't buy it. I disagree with the reason why it's popular and with the fact that apple would push cheaper devices in the hopes of enticing people to buy icloud.

I posit many people use it for syncing / sharing stuff and easy "backup", and not mainly as a way to increase storage for entry-level devices.

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

#427

Post by pc86 »

BartjeD wrote: post #390
pc86 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A landlord will happily swallow 50% of your income but a bank will start to feel bad about a ~30% debt to income ratio, so no you can't really. It's almost as if the banks know they're very likely to lose money by approving loans people are statistically unlikely to be able to make 360 on-time payments for. > Reminder that a 300k mortgage over 30 years at 5% costs you 600k in the end 100% true and stated this way m…

And with a few years of 10% inflation on the value of money etc... that 600 at x=30 was a bad deal

Compared to what?

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

#428

Post by mrguyorama »

9rx wrote: post #407
XorNot wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spectrum of possible civic organization is not binary, and is not capitalism and communism in opposition. Though the insinuation of such is routinely used to justify the ongoing stratification of wealth, and corruption of government.

> and is not capitalism and communism in opposition. Hard to say. The prevailing assumption, and basis for the Communist Party (on paper, at least), is that capitalists will try to block reaching a state of post-scarcity — the necessary precondition for communism. This is why they are sometimes considered to be at odds with each other. They don't have to be. And thus far they don't seem to be. Capitalism, and especia…

>American capitalism, has done far more to getting us closer to post-scarcity than anything else, with US-centric agriculture innovation being the shining example

Uh, the American food industry, like nearly every first world food industry, is super state run. We stopped letting capitalism run farms because regular famine was awful.

Have you seen how much we pay per bushel of corn? Our beef is not cheaper because of capitalism. It's cheaper from enormous state subsidies that are designed to ensure we grow shitloads of certain crops regardless of economic or market factors.

But it stopped all the crazy boom-bust cycles of farming that kept ruining farms, harming farmland, and starving Americans.

Even food stamps is largely about giving farmers more state money for growing things that aren't strictly profitable.

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

#429

Post by xenadu02 »

I'm just going to say: I bet it will eventually come out that RAM prices are yet another instance of illegal cartel collusion. For which all the RAM manufacturers have been convicted. More than once! If past incidents are any indication anytime there is a perceived "hot" market the RAM makers agree to limit production to current levels allowing market demand to increase prices, followed by production cuts if the market starts to soften.

GPU is a function of limited manufacturers and vendor lock-in combined with massive capex required to compete(). Like some (but not all) price inflation during and post COVID: rising prices can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If all your customers expect prices to rise might as well meet their expectations and get while the gettin' is good.

() Like a new CPU architecture only worse. The amount of engineering required as "table stakes" increases exponentially while at the same time the manufacturing expertise does the same. This suddenly and rapidly raises the barrier to entry. Anyone who can survive the early squeeze can do quite well in such markets.

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

#430

Post by JohnMakin »

cobolcomesback wrote: post #75
croes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The didn’t say what update mean, higher or lower and who watches the price page if you are already paying customer?

AWS sends out targeted notifications via email and via alerts in the console if you are a current customer of a service that is changing somehow. It’s pretty normal that they don’t send out a press release and blog post every time something changes - if they did it would be a mass overload of such releases.

And if you are spending enough, a rep will probably personally reach out to you. I've never personally been blindsided by price changes, they seem actually one of the better vendors about this.
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