You said the magic word: customers. People uploading videos to YouTube aren't customers and don't generally have a contract guaranteeing that they'll receive anything – ad revenue or even the ability to continue uploading.

Even AWS customers who don't have a contract (like reserved instances or an Enterprise Agreement) may not have any claim to receive ongoing service.

Hopefully it would simply mean more customers for other hosting centers. If you feel that people should take up arms against AWS employees in that case then you have other problems.

Business disputes are as old as businesses and we have ways to resolve those disputes: the courts.

And be sure to read the fine print of any service or company that you are going to do business with if your business will be dependent on that other party. Avoid such dependencies as much as possible.

So yes, signing up with AWS is a calculated risk. You should know the possible downsides of that decision, and you should be aware of your position, rights and obligations as well as the terms of service.

Migrating off of AWS is a difficult, drawn-out process which can take months, if you've got a lot of stuff there or are using a lot of AWS-specific features. That's part of why I chose that example. A lot of businesses a lot of people here work for would be in quite difficult straits if that happened.

... but the fact remains: AWS is a service provided by a private corporation, not the government. There's no requirement or mandate in criminal law that it exist or continue to function. It could be dropped without warning at any time, and the only recourse customers would have is whatever contracts provide for them. This isn't something Amazon would do, because "Leaving millions of dollars of revenue on the table" isn't in their best interest. But if it ever becomes in their best interest? Nothing but civil contracts stopping them.

Most of society actually works like this, and we somehow manage to muddle through without shooting each other most of the time.

Well, again, I'm not advocating murder. But cris de coueur about changes to services like AWS or the App Store get plenty of upvotes and attention here, while the attitude toward people trying to make a living off of YouTube is different. Why?

> if you've got a lot of stuff there or are using a lot of AWS-specific features.

If you allow yourself to be locked in to your hosting provider you are doing it wrong.

AWS is very clever about this but it is still your decision on whether or not you allow yourself to be suckered in. I point this out with some regularity to the companies I look at.

The courts are for rich people. Suing a major corporation is all but hopeless.

Practically, when you have a business dispute with a major corporation, your only option is to give up.

I've sued several very large corporations over the last 30 years and have to this date come out the winner in each and every case. Yes it cost some money but the pay-off was substantially higher than the money invested in the court case. And no, we were not rich by any definition.

In Europe the courts are still accessible for companies that do not have millions of $.

This story doesn't take place in Europe.

It couldn't take place in Europe.

I know little about European courts, so I'll just take you at your word. I'm not sure how this observation is relevant to the discussion.

Most of Europe has reasonably strict gun laws and it would be hard to get a gun in the first place.

Again, it seems like a non sequitur, if the discussion is about YouTube monetization policies.

Then other customers would be worried and might decide to move away? That's the key difference here, you're paying for AWS, you're not paying for Youtube. On top of that if you find that Youtube doesn't pay you enough then... Well, there's not much you can do since you'll probably earn even less on other platforms.

AWS on the other hand has plenty of competition, as long as you don't willingly lock yourself into their platform you'll be fine.

That would suck for many people, but would totally be in their right. Again - how are people confused about this. If AWS drops you as a customer use an alternative. Moreover, these people's videos are still hosted on YouTube's servers.

One distinction is that AWS has major competitors you could switch to, but YouTube essentially has a monopoly on that kind of content distribution.

Youtube does not have a monopoly at all. What Youtube has a monopoly on is that your content will get a lot of eyeballs that you don't actually have to do much work for.

It's a mall with a large number of people flowing through it rather than just a content distribution engine.

Another is that AWS customers tend to be businesses with full-time workers and not one person trying to eke out a living.

No the true reaction one should measure is by asking how one should react, if you put anything on the free tier usage of AWS S3, like say a video or a book and then expect Amazon to pay you for it.