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I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

fourlightyears.blogspot.com

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Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#61

Post by xmcp123 »

Something that has always bothered me an outsized amount is Elasticache.

I will bite the bullet and pay for RDS because it adds a lot of value - scalability, a reasonably optimized config, backups I don’t have to worry about.

But Elasticache is exploitatively priced with almost no value add.

It is slower, less optimized, less stable, and only supports one DB compared to a vanilla redis install with zero configuration.

There are some scalability improvements, but it’s extremely rare they’re even required because vanilla redis so wildly outperforms elasticache on a similar instance.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#62

Post by embedding-shape »

ceejayoz wrote: post #25
tedivm wrote: post #13

> AWS stomped on open source projects - despite the clear desire of projects like Elasticsearch, Redis, and MongoDB not to be cloned and monetized, AWS pushed ahead with OpenSearch, Valkey, and DocumentDB anyway, capturing the hosted-service money after those communities and companies had built the markets; the result was a wave of defensive licenses like SSPL, Elastic License, RSAL, and other source-available models…

> it's really weird to say that the forks "resulted" in the license changes when those forks where a response to the license changes But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects.

> But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects

Or seen from the other side, these projects chose initial licenses that didn't fit with their wants for how others should use their project, in this mind.

If you use a license that gives people the freedom to host your project as a service and make money that way, without paying you, and your goal was to make money that specific way, it kind of feels like you chose the wrong license here.

What was unsustainable (considering this perspective) was less that outside actors did what they were allowed to do, and more that they chose a license that was incompatible with their actual goals.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#64

Post by rpdillon »

ipaddr wrote: post #56
rpdillon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a problem with their business model, then. License changes to a formerly open source project are costly. The community reacts very strongly when license terms change after they've come to depend on a product, and they should. Why do we apply this standard to MongoDB but not to Apache, Linux, Postgres, or MariaDB? One purpose of an open source license is to allow many providers to provide the service. As I'v…

Competition would mean Amazon creating their own software. Taking software others made and using your monopoly eco-system and scale to drive the original creator out of the game kills the product. Many support breaking up Amazon so others could compete not killing small entities and growing Amazon.

It's not just Amazon, it's also smaller providers like Dreamhost, which I've been using for 20 years. I feel like people are in favor of killing the hosting ecosystem so that we can support businesses that didn't have a working plan to monetize their open source offering.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#65

Post by MagicMoonlight »

jfengel wrote: post #7

I don't work in that area, so I only touch AWS once in a while for personal fun projects. And every time it's a nightmare. I'm just banging out a server for my experimental card game, not setting up an new financial institution. Everything looks as if I'm preparing to scale to infinity tomorrow, with a staff of a thousand and a budget backed by VCs. Fortunately there's Netlify and similar, who put a gloss on it so th…

AWS is aimed at enterprise, not personal projects. Personal projects wouldn’t give them any meaningful revenue because the only thing that matters is cost.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#66

Post by embedding-shape »

chuckadams wrote: post #11
jfengel wrote: post #7

I don't work in that area, so I only touch AWS once in a while for personal fun projects. And every time it's a nightmare. I'm just banging out a server for my experimental card game, not setting up an new financial institution. Everything looks as if I'm preparing to scale to infinity tomorrow, with a staff of a thousand and a budget backed by VCs. Fortunately there's Netlify and similar, who put a gloss on it so th…

You can just spin up a raw VPS on EC2 or Lightsail, give it a public IP, and call it a day. You aren't required to implement every enterprise pattern in the book.

If there is any single service I'd avoid on AWS it's Lightsail, it'll cost you a lot more than almost anything out there, is slow as molasses (even tiny services can need tens of minutes to deploy) and you'll experience random failures not even AWS reps can explain to you. Avoid at all costs.

It's a ghost of its former self, but I'd probably still rather use Heroku today than being forced to use Lightsail even once again.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#67

Post by ceejayoz »

embedding-shape wrote: post #62
ceejayoz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's really weird to say that the forks "resulted" in the license changes when those forks where a response to the license changes But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects.

> But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects Or seen from the other side, these projects chose initial licenses that didn't fit with their wants for how others should use their project, in this mind. If you use a license that gives people the freedom to host your project as a service and make money that way, without paying you, and yo…

The situation changed. A license that's the right choice at one point may not be the right license a decade later.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#68

Post by embedding-shape »

ceejayoz wrote: post #67
embedding-shape wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects Or seen from the other side, these projects chose initial licenses that didn't fit with their wants for how others should use their project, in this mind. If you use a license that gives people the freedom to host your project as a service and make money that way, without paying you, and yo…

The situation changed. A license that's the right choice at one point may not be the right license a decade later.

Agree, as long as existing contributors agree the license should be changed, projects should feel free to do so, no harm, no foul.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#69

Post by _puk »

geoffbp wrote: post #39

Slightly different but related topic - for people who work with people vibe coding, what is the easiest way to allow that for non tech users (and reducing risk)? AWS or something like vercel? Coolify?

Vercel and supabase seems to be the norm around here.

DX is simple, integrations between the two, and the stack is well understood by the LLM.

Lovable uses supabase, and is surprisingly easy to eject from too; I've done the lovable to Vercel + supabase a couple of times, even managing to keep it syncing via the Git integration. You can get proper scalable infra and minimal vendor lock in whilst the vibe coder gets to play with the pretty.

Re: I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

#70

Post by [deleted] »

embedding-shape wrote: post #66
chuckadams wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just spin up a raw VPS on EC2 or Lightsail, give it a public IP, and call it a day. You aren't required to implement every enterprise pattern in the book.

If there is any single service I'd avoid on AWS it's Lightsail, it'll cost you a lot more than almost anything out there, is slow as molasses (even tiny services can need tens of minutes to deploy) and you'll experience random failures not even AWS reps can explain to you. Avoid at all costs. It's a ghost of its former self, but I'd probably still rather use Heroku today than being forced to use Lightsail even once a…

[deleted]
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