If you are wondering why anyone would spend more money to use these APIs through AWS instead of going direct: In some companies it’s nearly impossible to get new vendors approved. If the company has an AWS contract then you have to use what AWS offers.
Every CEO, board, and middle manager in the world is AI buzzword-obsessed now. Surely asking to sign a contract with the frontier labs directly would not get held up?
Every CEO, board, and middle manager in the world still has to go through infosec in large orgs.
The hard part is not the CEO, it's the CISO
If you're an engineer in the trenches of the company, good luck convincing the people above to sign that contract. You'll waste thousands of hours just trying.
Even if you can get it approved you are adding surface area to your annual security audits, adding another vendor that needs to be disclosed on security assessments, spreading your data to yet another processor, and adding another invoice and budget discussion. Depending on your customer contracts you may need to notify them of a new vendor. This might trigger a new security review. Oh it’s just another model on Bedrock? Bliss.