> Isn't the mid/late game of all of these alternative clouds going to be the same as the big cloud players...get customer lock in and then prices slowly creep up until its kind of a wash?
That might be the plan, but I doubt it's going to work for GPUs like it did for AWS.
There's no moat here, other than the hardware. There's no value-add that the provider can add for free and lock you in.
> There's no value-add that the provider can add for free and lock you in.
Couldn't you have said that about cloud services like AWS before they existed, that they can rent servers to people but there won't be any lock in?
And equally, just because that's the case with GPU providers right now, is there a reason one or more of them wouldn't be able to develop software which runs on the GPUs to do some of the things people are currently renting GPUs for, or middle-ground software which make it easier to do other stuff on them than just renting plain GPU access, and turning it into optional services (with lock in) on top of the raw hardware rental?
As an example idea: it's good that NVIDIA decided to let as many people use CUDA as possible (and I suspect if they hadn't then they wouldn't have seen nearly as much success), but if they or anyone else releases an equivalent to "CUDA v2" tomorrow, but instead of allowing anyone to download it instead put it behind a billing page with AWS-style pricing that covers both software and GPU, would it not succeed if the software did make thinks easier for people just like AWS does (in some ways)?
edit: I just realised I ignored the "for free" bit of your comment - but it wasn't free for Amazon or Google to build their cloud software either.
That might be the plan, but I doubt it's going to work for GPUs like it did for AWS.
There's no moat here, other than the hardware. There's no value-add that the provider can add for free and lock you in.