Cloud Enshittification

If you aren’t already familiar with the term enshittification I highly recommend you follow Cory Doctorow (on your social media platform of choice) and read this:

Pluralistic: My McLuhan lecture on enshittification (30 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.Cory Doctorow

Now that we’re on the same page, the question that should be top of your mind is, how does this affect the cloud? And what are you going to do about it?

Given the cost (and as mentioned in my last post, lock in) that most enterprises experience for cloud migration projects, let alone #HPC cloud migrations, what’s your plan for when we start down this slippery slope?

I actually don’t think that cloud platforms have started the downward vortex into the toilet bowl of enshittification. Yet. But you’d have to be pretty brave to think that they won’t. 

The cloud providers still have pretty healthy profit margins. A far cry from your typical utility company, which is what cloud will eventually become. I rather suspect that won’t be a pleasant journey for cloud users though. 

And maybe, just maybe, AWS started down that path recently by starting to charge for IPv4 addresses…