There's enough room there for workflows where I know I'm going to delete data later that allowing configuration would be valuable. (Maybe I can set a timed expiration at the moment of storage, instead of having to store first and separately delete later? That would keep end-of-month predictions accurate.) But it isn't difficult to set the hard cutoff.
What you're asking for is not possible and will have unintended consequences. Guaranteed not to meet every customer's expectation of how it works.
Yes, that's the idea. Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22719015
>> My pet project cannot involve the risk of possibly costing me thousands or more because I made a mistake or it got super popular over night. I'd rather my site just 503.
> What you're asking for is not possible
How so?
But if the data is stored, the clock keeps ticking until you delete it. If I have a TB of data stored, and I hit my $1K (or whatever limit) on April 15, the only way that I don't get hit with a >$1K bill for the month is if AWS deletes anything I have stored on the service. (Or at least holds it hostage until I pay up for the overage.)