They even name their annual event this way[1]

[1] https://reinvent.awsevents.com

I think, the difference is that AWS already has a bunch of core services that scale and uses them as a base for new services. (MongoDB->DocumentDB)

Also, they hear about the problems some customers have with an existing product and try to (re)invent a better solution. (MySQL->Aurora)

Sometimes I'm not even sure they're re-inventing, just adding a vender-lock-in layer on top of the service and making it run on Lambda so they can advertise it as "web-scale".

Yeah, although not on the AGPL licensed services.

It’s fun if you’re the guy building the stuff. Not if you’re the guy using all reinvented tooling.

But why do they do it so badly? Seems like they have the engineering muscle to put out a great reinvention of a document db, a time series db, a graph db... but each is relatively poor to the other services on AWS. Is it the combination of MVP-culture and lock-in?

The article suggests an answer:

"The viability of our company, Timescale, is 100% dependent on the quality of TimescaleDB. If we build a sub-par product, we cease to exist. Amazon Timestream is just another of the 200+ services that Amazon is developing. Regardless of the quality of Amazon Timestream, that team will still be supported by the rest of Amazon’s business – and if the product gets shut down, that team will find homes elsewhere within the larger company."

Breadth versus depth seems to be the play outside of their absolute core offerings. It allows people to dip their toes into something with minimal commitment and by the time they realize the shortcomings they might conclude that migrating for those features just isn't worth it.

So this give them a bit of lock-in. Come for the EC2, stay for the minimally viable queues, machine learning, containers, etc.

This exactly, they are just trying to get their foot in the door in literally any idea someone else is already pursuing so that if it starts to make money they can start to put the juice on the engineering for that and take their market share.

The business model is solely focused on competing with and taking out other businesses, not actually providing any value. AWS is like a pack of sharks.

The value they sell is really operational convenience. Over time they have figured out how to run large services at scale, and monetize that. The features of those services are often weaker than competition, as noted in this thread.

There are only so many "A" teams in a big company.

it would be more fun without the annual reinvent death march