←back to thread

I Followed the Official AWS Amplify Guide and Was Charged $1,100

(elliott-king.github.io)
461 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 14 Nov 24 06:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.261s | source
Show context
modernerd ◴[14 Nov 24 08:08 UTC] No.42134059[source]▶
"Billing alerts" are a joke, give us hard spend limits. Then offer a way to set those limits during onboarding.

Building a business on blank cheques and accidental spends is shady. It's also a large barrier to adoption. The more times devs see reports like, "I tried [random 20-minute tutorial] and woke up to a bill for my life's savings and luckily support waived the fee this one time but next time they're coming for my house", the less they'll want to explore your offerings.

replies(20): >>42134131 #>>42134150 #>>42134268 #>>42134271 #>>42134282 #>>42134287 #>>42134291 #>>42134375 #>>42134462 #>>42134469 #>>42134517 #>>42134613 #>>42134695 #>>42134828 #>>42135170 #>>42135288 #>>42135373 #>>42135557 #>>42135706 #>>42136718 #
soup10 ◴[14 Nov 24 09:10 UTC] No.42134375[source]▶
Spend limits are such an obvious and necessary feature that the only reason they don't have them is shady business practices.
replies(2): >>42134483 #>>42135346 #
lukeramsden ◴[14 Nov 24 09:32 UTC] No.42134483[source]▶
Not really. Do you think that this is trivial at AWS scale? What do you do when people hit their hard spend limits, start shutting down their EC2 instances and deleting their data? I can see the argument that just because its "hard" doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, but it's disingenuous to say they're shady because they don't.
replies(9): >>42134529 #>>42134586 #>>42134724 #>>42134741 #>>42134961 #>>42135020 #>>42135028 #>>42135354 #>>42135796 #
1. jeffparsons ◴[14 Nov 24 10:17 UTC] No.42134741[source]▶
At AWS engineering scale they can absolutely figure it out if they have the slightest interest in doing so. I've heard all the excuses — they all suck.

Businesses with lawyers and stuff can afford to negotiate with AWS etc. when things go wrong. Individuals who want to upskill on AWS to improve their job prospects have to roll the dice on AWS maybe bankrupting them. AWS actively encourages developers to put themselves in this position.

I don't know if AWS should be regulated into providing spending controls. But if they don't choose to provide spending controls of their own accord, I'll continue to call them out for being grossly irresponsible, because they are.