I don't think it is realistic or desirable to expect Google to run App Engine like a charity. They've got a sizable team running and developing App Engine. Plus, people want things like support.
I agree with some of the other commenters, overall I take this as a positive. It means google is taking app engine serious. I think the issue currently is the uncertainty. We're all just guessing about what might happen and doing calculations based on numbers that they've explicitly said will be changing. That's great for worst-case evaluations, but we're going to have wait a bit to see how it shakes out in the end. One thing is for sure, the senior PM is actively watching and responding to these questions. This is also very good, I'm sure Greg and the AE team will use all the feedback to finalize the details. Robert On May 12, 2011, at 0:13, Darien Caldwell <darien.caldw...@gmail.com> wrote: > The funny thing is, I think Google, and a lot of other people, have > forgotten what Cloud Computing was started for. It was because large > companies (like Google) had a lot of hardware which is necessary to > handle the loads their services require, but which don't always work > at full capacity. They spend varying amounts of time idle. > > The idea was to A) allow people to utilize this idle time for > something productive, and B) allow said Big Company to recoup some > costs associated with powering and maintaining all of this hardware > which isn't being utilized 100%. > > key word is 'recoup'. It seems to me a lot of companies are looking > to 'cash in' rather than 'recoup'. The hardware and infrastructure is > sitting there, effectively 'for free' because Google requires it to > run it's business. Charging anything more that what it costs to > develop and maintain the API and associated administration is going > beyond this for the profit motive, plain and simple. All of the > hardware/electricity/ Network Administration is already being paid for > (in spades) by all of the profits Google reaps from all of it's > various enterprises, that all run off the same machinery. > > The question is, is this what Google is doing? Is the pricing beyond > what it costs to make GAE available to the public? I don't think > anyone knows, except Google. But I wouldn't be surprised if they have > lost sight of the original motivation for all of this was, > Conservation, not Profit. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine" group. > To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
