Aww, my product (Preemptible VMs) got ignored from this section:
> A current market-design challenge for Amazon and Microsoft is their big cloud computing services. These digital services, for example, face a peak-load problem, much as electric utilities do.
> How do you sell service at times when there is a risk some customers may be bumped off? Run an auction for what customers are willing to pay for interruptible service? Or offer set discounts for different levels of risk? Both Amazon and Microsoft are working on that now.
Maybe we're boring because I fought (and won) for flat pricing instead of making this auction-based like Spot. We didn't ignore the economics though, auctions are a great thing for a fixed, exchangeable pie; much less clear for price elasticity, and an effectively infinitely scalable business.
> A current market-design challenge for Amazon and Microsoft is their big cloud computing services. These digital services, for example, face a peak-load problem, much as electric utilities do.
> How do you sell service at times when there is a risk some customers may be bumped off? Run an auction for what customers are willing to pay for interruptible service? Or offer set discounts for different levels of risk? Both Amazon and Microsoft are working on that now.
Maybe we're boring because I fought (and won) for flat pricing instead of making this auction-based like Spot. We didn't ignore the economics though, auctions are a great thing for a fixed, exchangeable pie; much less clear for price elasticity, and an effectively infinitely scalable business.