It's just a way to appear generous with an offer they know they won't accept.

And/or a way to "offer more value" without the extra cost.

Same reason you get more trade-in credit for a giftcard then cash, hosting is "virtually" free, and kindles only cost production + shipping cost.

Not defending them, this is a useless offer, just offering another reason they'd have.

And $5 million is nothing for Amazon, especially given they're only actually spending a fraction of that as you mentioned.

People who run corporations either don't get or don't care that predicating relationships on deception makes people not like them.

You laugh, but people sign up to Techstars for just that every year. Pity they didn't throw in some AWS Credits as well.

We're talking about indigenous nations. What the hell are they going to do with AWS hosting?

If they're fighting over the '.amazon' TLD then presumably they'll need some form of hosting no?

I still agree it's a stupid offer from amazon though.

We're not, actually. The "nations of the amazon" referred to in the article are "Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela - all members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization"

In this case, I could see AWS hosting being useful to them (maybe even something along the lines of GovCloud like AWS runs for the US Government)