If a startup has baked in dependencies on AWS services, yes.

But if some startups have planned for portability and would rather stretch their OpEx runway instead of paying Amazon, switching could make sense.

I'm in the early stages of planning a startup that we'll likely bootstrap. I would use Google's cloud if this was a thing, and probably not switch later because our proposed design doesn't leverage much in the way of AWS stuff (about the only thing is SQS, but that's hidden behind an AMQP facade).

We have an email address on the landing page for folks like you -- [email protected] -- ping us, send us details, we'll get you over and take care of you. It's really more for recommending the intermediaries but it's a way to contact us -- so take the initiative :) The sentiment here is largely correct -- accelerators, VC's and others provide a great way to prevent fraud and other issues that programs like these deal with. We also offer $500 credit vouchers for folks who want to tinker and we are working on other ways (stay tuned) for people who want to evaluate for free to do so.

Hope this helps --

-Brian head of marketing, google cloud platform

Except for the fact the luring is the goal of the program.

Hum, yes, that's my point.