> AWS at cost price would probably be 60-80x less than what they charge; if not more.

If you look at https://ir.aboutamazon.com/news-release/news-release-details... , it says in 2024,

> AWS segment sales increased 19% year-over-year to $107.6 billion.

> AWS segment operating income was $39.8 billion, compared with operating income of $24.6 billion in 2023.

So about 59% margin, relative to costs. Everybody undercutting AWS is likely doing so at close enough to 20% margins that it makes no sense to fund a startup in the same space.

AWS is everything from GPU farms and AI services to S3.

I would be shocked if S3 had less than a 100% margin at sticker price.

These guys had one of the most important prerequisites to make going on-prem easy - they didn't care about cross-site or reliability.

> AWS segment operating income was $39.8 billion

keep in mind that cost there is likely to also be including personnel. probably a significant fraction if you consider how many employees amazon's aws division has.