Thanks for making a donation!
I run the relay server, but the Debian maintainer agreed to bake an alternate hostname into the packaged versions (a CNAME for the same address that the upstream git code uses), so we could change it easily if the cost ever got to be a burden. It hasn't been a problem so far, it moves 10-15 TB per month, but shares a bandwidth pool with other servers I'm renting anyways, so I've only ever had to pay an overage charge once. And TBH if someone made a donation to me, I'd just send it off to Debian anyways.
Every once in a while, somebody moves half a terabyte through it, and then I think I should either move to a slower-but-flat-rate provider, or implement some better rate-limiting code, or finally implement the protocol extension where clients state up front how much data they're going to transfer, and the server can say no. But so far it's never climbed the priority ranking high enough to take action on.
Thanks for using magic wormhole!
As I'm sure you're aware: https://www.scaleway.com/en/stardust-instances/ "up to 100Mbps" for $4/month
I'm beginning to think that the only feasible solution is changing the law.
If something is overpriced, somebody should jump in and take advantage of a business opportunity. If nobody is jumping in, perhaps the item is not overpriced. Or perhaps there is some systemic issue preventing willing competitors from jumping in. Imagine if somebody tackled the real issue and it unclogged the plumbing for producers of all sorts of medicine beside insulin at the same time.
If a government mandates the sale of an item below the cost of production, they drive out all producers and that product disappears from the market. That is, unless they create some government subsidy or other graft to compensate the government-appointed winners. Any way you slice it, it is a recipe for disaster.
If parties are allowed to compete fairly with each other, somebody will offer a cheaper price. This is already the case with AWS. Consumers may decide that the cheaper product is somehow inferior, but that is not a problem that lawmakers should interfere in.
"Evergreening", a process where the drug manufacturers slightly change the formula or delivery when one patent is running out, to gain a new patent, then stop manufacturing the old formula.
Not saying I want to see AWS bandwidth prices regulated (though I think they could come down and still make a massive profit). But in the case of insulin, the industry has left little choice but government intervention.