Amazon Web Services Dark Patterns
As far as I can tell, the confusingly named Aurora PostgreSQL is not actually PostgreSQL but rather an Amazon-specific database designed with one overriding goal: to be infinitely more expensive than PostgreSQL, which is free. In any case, the AWS Free Tier details give the impression to unsuspecting new users that PostgreSQL is free, without making an explicit distinction between true PostgreSQL and Amazon’s faux PostgreSQL.
The worst part is that when you enable Aurora PostgreSQL on the free tier, which I apparently did without knowing exactly what Aurora meant, Amazon does not warn you that you’re about to be charged an obscene amount of money. And I didn’t even use the database, as far as I know.
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The AWS documentation is, in a word, massive, just as AWS itself is massive. I would also suggest that there’s something very wrong with an internet service if you have to wade through the fine print of the service’s massive documentation just to discover that you can suddenly and silently incur a cost of hundreds of dollars per month for a feature on a specific tier advertised by the service as free.
This post is from last year, but I came across it while going through some old drafts, and it still sounds like something to be aware of.
Previously:
- Why Has Figma Reinvented the Wheel with PostgreSQL?
- Amazon Prime Dark Patterns Lawsuit
- Amazon Buy Box May Not Offer the Best Deal
- Amazon to Drop Prime Cancellation Dark Patterns in Europe
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
@Manx this isn't anything new at all. Remember when Amazon discovered people were having difficulty canceling their Prime subscriptions, improved the sign-up/cancel page dramatically, then went with the old version when they realized they were making millions of dollars a year on these dark patterns? Pepperidge farms remembers!
I don't know if Michael allows links so you can google "FTC Takes Action Against Amazon for Enrolling Consumers in Amazon Prime Without Consent and Sabotaging Their Attempts to Cancel" for the report straight from the FTC.
