Remember that Netflix runs their core product (content distribution) internally on their own CDN. All of the supporting technologies (billing, content discovery, etc.) is on AWS, but the core product is not.

This was a pretty recent change. Netflix has classically relied on third-party CDN providers. They launched the streaming service in 2007, and it took them 9 years to move 100% of their traffic to their own CDN infrastructure. That said, they still have one of the largest AWS footprints.

The core products are the shows, not the tech.

Without the tech, no one sees the core products.

Without the shows, the tech has nothing to show. Who's gonna pay for nothing?

Those with the shows didn't build the tech, but Netflix did.

And now Netflix is even building shows.

I've always found it interesting that Netflix has not at least tried to go off AWS; if only because Amazon has a competing service with Amazon video. I'm sure its not an easy problem to solve, but Dropbox has gone off AWS as well; it seems like they would be much better served with their own "Video Cloud" with specialized hardware for streaming/processing videos.

Netflix realizes that the value presented by AWS for outweighs the costs. If you feel differently, you should probably ask yourself what information you are missing, rather than just dismissing Netflix and their decision. It's clear that Netflix knows more about operating applications with tens of millions of simultaneous global users than most companies...

>If you feel differently, you should probably ask yourself what information you are missing

That's something that should be applied almost universally. :)

I don't think Netflix and Amazon really compete yet. Very few people see the two services as either/or. They're more allies against the cable companies at the moment.

Netflix doesn't use AWS for streaming video.

https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

You make a good point that Netflix has a pretty sophisticated system for delivering video (not just served from AWS Cloudfront). However IIUC they still use AWS for preparing video files for their CDN.

Dropbox is an example where their core business is very data-intensive and AWS costs can be considerable.

I'm thinking of services, say the automated robo-built sadwiches, or the Easy 401 service, or the luxury shoes startup (all real YC-accepted companies), where the core business proposition isn't necessarily dependent on having a huge infrastructure.

Netflix doesn't pay retail prices for AWS.