Speed has always mattered, though I agree we are light-years away from optimization levels once considered standard. OTOH, so are we WRT complexity of applications.

Amazon is not going to change software development per se, but at least at some of their customers' sites calculations will be done how many hours can be allocated for a n% reduction in runtime. So, if you live in an amazon-universe, this is a real "game changer". Bystanders may chuckle ;)