Is AWS a Dumb Pipe

AWS is Not a Dumb Pipe

• Telecom companies. became the "dumb pipe" by giving up higher-level services.
• Will AWS follow its track?
• Yes:
  • Being a dumb pipe is way more economical. Why waste money?
  • There are so many blooming industries. AWS can never catch up and will eventually become a pipe.
  • Private markets will foster some higher-level service that downgrades AWS as one pipe of many, like Snowflake.
• No:
  • Product quality difference is very hard to notice these days. AWS has a huge business opportunity.
  • AWS can move up. Kafka → Kinesis. MongoDB → DocumentDB. Redis → MemoryDB. ElasticSearch → OpenSearch.
  • AWS engineers are already too tech-savvy. They will not miss a business opportunity.
  • Why would businesses add more vendors if they can use the AWS product?
  • Incentives are aligned between open source and hyperscalers (?)