Does Amazon Have Dark User Interface Patterns?
February 25, 2020
The question “Does Amazon make use of interfaces intentionally designed to generate revenue?” is an interesting one. Amazon does have a boatload of features, functions, and services. There are — what? — more than a half dozen different databases, including the quantum thing.
The article “My First AWS Free Tier Hosting Bill Was $900.” The idea is that “free” did not mean exactly free. This is akin to the word “unlimited” when it appears in mobile data plans. Is Amazon following a path blazed by telecommunications giants, truly models of consumer centric behavior in DarkCyber’s narrow view of the economic world.
The write up states:
A major part of AWS marketing is pay-per-use for their services:
“You only pay for the services you consume, and once you stop using them, there are no additional costs or termination fees.” – AWS Pricing
They also market “free tier” products, less powerful instances that are free for the first year of use.
The article reports that a slow roll out allowed the system to “sit around for a month.”
That decision cost about $1,000.
The article points out that assuming that an “idle server” would not cost anything. Also, the Amazon jargon did not make sense, so the developer ignored the Amazon speak.
The write up goes through the Amazon lingo to alert other individuals of Amazon’s approach to “free.”
Several observations:
- Amazon is confusing. DarkCyber thinks this is party due to the vaunted two pizza team approach to programming and part due to clever marketers who really want to match up to the founder’s principles.
- Amazon pitches itself hard as the logical, best, and superior choice for cloud anything. Individuals who buy this pig in a poke are going to pay.
- Amazon, if one makes a good case to the customer service unit staffed with people who sort of speak like those in rural Kentucky, will modify the charge.
Are these some lessons one can learn from this write up? Maybe, for example:
- Learn to speak Amazon
- Think before clicking
- Amazon became really big for a reason: Avoid becoming a third party merchant whose hot product became part of Amazon Basics.
Your mileage may vary from the drive through the Tunnel of Love that the author of the article took.
Stephen E Arnold, February 25, 2020
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