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0 pointsdlhavema5y ago0 comments

I know a colleague that worked on Alexa stuff and he said they did use AWS infrastructure and part of his job was reducing the cost Alexa paid to AWS...

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kvz5y ago

On the one hand that sounds weird and AWS could just offer any discount, on the other if they can get done the same on less resources, others can rent the freed up resources at a premium

blahblah125y ago

This is called cross-org transfer pricing. It's a common practice in accounting. In fact, imagine a company where this doesn't happen. Retail decides that they can "excessively" use AWS. This contributes to waste and problematic accounting when it comes time to report finances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing

jldugger5y ago

Indeed half the point of AWS was to facilitate cost accounting. Probably because Bezos thought they had expertise in online marketplaces that would transfer. Jury's still deliberating on whether AWS' incomprehensible billing is a signal of incompetence or sheer brilliance.

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C1sc0cat5y ago

It can also open up a can of worms as companies as big as Amazon can get into trouble with regulators.

When I worked at BT we could not crosssubsidize say our online services and had to give up the short dial for access 618 used to connect you to PRESTEL on any exchange.

Also at one point they where considering not allowing people working for a joint venture to use the same restaurants

yomly5y ago

That compute isn't free - it comes at the opportunity cost of being sold to a paying customer so it makes sense to price it internally even if it is "virtual"

nl5y ago

It's pretty normal to account for use of cross department internal resources in some kind of financial way within corporations.

cowsandmilk5y ago

> On the one hand that sounds weird

It wouldn’t sound weird if one’s goal was reduce the number of servers used by 20%. Excess spend is excess spend.

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