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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   1670 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 1, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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and the Hertzner server costs 1/10th

This in particular has me regularly scratching my head as to how we got here. Surely, I must be missing something if the whole industry decided this is the way to go. But why is it that any time I run the numbers, cloud compute ends up feeling like highway robbery? "Noo, you don't understand, you can set up auto-scaling, so you only pay for what you're using at any given time!" Sir, at that price differential I can rent enough servers to cover peak demand several times over, and still have money to spare relative to your galaxy-brained auto-scaling solution. "Nooo, you have to use reserved instances, they're cheaper!" How is that not just renting a server? How are you still making it several times more expensive given the scale you're operating at?

Am I missing something, or did they play us for absolute fools?

Sir, at that price differential I can rent enough servers to cover peak demand several times over, and still have money to spare relative to your galaxy-brained auto-scaling solution.

I like this mental model.

It comes up in health care too. For example, if I get surgery done at a free market place like the Oklahoma Surgery Center, there's a good chance the TOTAL cost will be less than just my personal out of pocket cost using a standard hospital that accepts insurance.

I also use a wealth insurance based approach to health care and I am regularly surprised that a bit of negotiating and shopping around can bring the cash price of something down to less than it would've been with co-insurance.

At the end of the day it's usually easier for a random organizations to spend money on a cloud bill that keeps getting bigger than it is to spend money on sys admins to set up a cheaper, more DIY solution. Hiring the sys admin takes expertise a lot of orgs don't have, and often the search takes time, and you're kind of at the mercy of sys admins who have ornery and persnickety temperaments (not unlike me!)

If you're a tech company yourself you often have the talent to DIY it, though you may or may not consider this the highest ROI investment.

It's not unlike commercial real estate. You can probably save money by buying an office instead of renting, but it's not like you just write a check and you're done. You need to now bring on a facilities maintenance crew, and concern yourself with additional financing and accounting issues, and maybe also directly work with contractors and the regulatory state. Is it natural for your org to pivot into commercial real estate? Or are your resources better invested in your primary business?

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