ODD BILLING -- What was striking about this web site -- and digital property -- "inside" the Google "Walled Garden" -- was the need for a $10 "cover charge" (Google Play gift card) to cover the "small noise" billing. While most Google services are Ad supported -- and generally considered "free" -- some are not -- and are "billed" in very, very small increments -- that accumulate -- and can surprise & trip workflows "nested" inside the Google cloud.
2009 Book: The Google Way
The "Google Way" is not necessarily "better" or "worse" than any other hosting and content management "cloud solution" -- the "Google Way" is just one more "walled garden" on the internet -- as is Apple -- or Facebook -- or MS-Bing -- or Yahoo -- or Zoho -- or whatever.
Perhaps the BigBox store metaphor will aid understanding. Consider, when you choose to drive to / visit / enter / shop in a BigBox store -- be they WalMart / Target / HEB / Home Depot / etc -- you are presented with a "Walled Garden" marketing & shopping approach. And -- indirectly -- you "bought into" the BigBox store's idea of what a shopping "experience" in a "Walled Garden" should be.
Why "Walled Garden?" In short -- A "Walled Garden" is "pretty" -- and "nice" -- and "predictable" -- and "comfortable" -- and things are "easy" to find. And most important for the store owner -- customer interests and whims are almost always focused and "folded back into" the store presentation. Internet walled gardens attempt to manifest a similar presentation "style" -- and "dominate" your approach to internet communications / shopping / web marketing / presentation solutions.
SMALL INCREMENT MONEY: The "Google Way" and "Google Cloud" suite of software services manifests a peculiarity similar to a BigBox store: Small charges "rack up" as you walk around the store: Stop at the coffee bar -- pay for a single cup on the spot. Ditto for the "juice bar" and the "sandwich cafe." Billing for stuff you consume on the spot -- stuff too difficult to track as you walk around the store -- and out the door.
Yet unlike a BigBox store -- the Google Cloud billing increments are so small as to be almost un-measureable. And Google seems unsure exactly how small these billing increments really are -- or should be. It is a tricky problem: How to bill clients in increments of 0.000000000001 cents? (i.e. one trillionth of a penny). Or 1.0e-18 pennies? (one "atto-penny") How do you "pay" on the spot?
From Wikipedia: "Short Scale" Orders of Magnitude
Why are these billing increments so small? Why is it easy to "price" a transaction in coffee or sandwiches -- yet difficult to price Google services? Contrast history in technology development can help.
COST of Moving Bits -- HISTORY -- Like Little Orphan Annie -- back in the dark-ages of 1986 -- when I was a newly minted instrumentation and Geophysics nerd -- I was helping a Daddy Warbucks project in the wilds of New Mexico. My project leader was building instruments for space probes -- ultimately "tasked" to support something called -- at the time -- Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
From Wikipedia
And yes -- the "bad guys" will test a nuke bomb in the high atmosphere -- maybe low Earth orbit -- to escape attention -- by the watchful "BigBro" Nations. Thus the need for specialized space instruments to "sniff out" the nuke bomb "poo" generated by sneak test "proliferators." Nuke test mischief was just possible in 1979 -- see wiki hints below. Almost impossible in 1987. And very probably impossible in 2015.
Approximate Location of 1979 Vela Incident
From Wikipedia
ORBIT COST: In 1987 -- our monitoring & nuke bomb sniffing instruments "cost" Daddy Warbucks something like $1.2 million USD per kilogram (2.2 pounds) to design / promote / develop / test / "make ready" for launch / boost into orbit. Developing a "bad" instrument was both financially bad -- and a career changer.
COST AVOIDANCE vs BANDWIDTH BURN RATE: Each preliminary "realization" of a nuke bomb sniffing instrument -- in metal -- cost some $50,000 in machine shop drilling & milling costs (1987 dollars). My project leader wanted to test many dozens and dozens of instrument designs -- via simulations in the computer -- before cutting any "test metal" in the machine shop -- and especially before committing to final "flight design" hardware.
My task was running 1000s of small instrument shape changes and design modifications thru the Cray super computers -- to "test" -- at least with physics and numerical simulations -- and help determine the "best" instrument shape and "front end" design that would speak to the design goals -- goals set for test ban treaty monitoring and mission requirements.
The input for 1000s of small design tests did not require massive storage. Nor did the output results. Design changes were handled via a single sheet of paper -- as were the Cray super computer results. The bandwidth "dial up" burn time -- and design "hatch time" -- these costs were a different matter.
In 1986-87 -- I was using a 9600 baud speed modem -- to "dial in" and access the super computers via telephone. I was "online" some 6-7 hours per day -- five to six days per week -- shepherding the 100s of small design changes thru the super computers.
Telephone "Wireline Centers" Across USA
Map From Wikipedia
LONG DISTANCE -- Due to some really strange telephone regulatory LATA rules governing "local" exchanges -- my "home & compute bunker phone" was "long distance" back to the super computers. Daddy Warbucks provided a "calling card" to cover the long distance billing -- and I saw these bills in the project management reports -- $1200 to $5000 per month. A very big bandwidth cost. Yet -- in the long run -- "cheaper" than a "bad" design going into orbit.
CALC: 1987 BACK TO THE FUTURE -- Assuming that my "dial in" to the super computers was "averaging" $2500 per month -- and was "full bore" 9600 baud 40 hours per week -- I would have been moving Bytes (ASCII characters) at the rate of:
(960 bytes / sec) * (3600 sec/hr) * (40 hrs/wk) * (4 wks/month) = 55,296,000 bytes/month
55.3 megabytes per month. Or an average of:
(55.3e6 bytes / 2500 $ ) = 22,100 bytes / dollar
22,100 bytes per dollar -- or as a reciprocal -- 4.52 millionths (4.52e-06) of a dollar per binary bit
NEAR ZERO? -- 4.52e-06 dollars per bit may seem like an amazingly small number -- yet please consider -- since 1987 -- the cost of moving bits has collapse to almost zero -- almost to an un-measureable level -- mostly due to technology advances -- and some due to statutory and regulatory changes regarding how telephone circuits are "priced" and "managed."
YES, NEAR ZERO -- 640000x PRICE REDUCTION RATIO -- As a simple compare example -- at my 2015 compute bunker -- my "fully price loaded" DSL internet connection costs about $55 per month (taxes / entitlement burdens / licenses included). And is "on" 24x7 -- not like old time dial-up service.
At full bore -- the DSL line can sustain 3.0 megabits per second -- 7.76e12 bits per month -- about 776 gigabytes per month -- if data were moving 24 hours per day for 30 days. This approx 14,138 megabytes per dollar transported. Or in the reciprocal, about 7 trillionths of a dollar per binary bit. Relative to 1987 "dial-up" bandwidth cost -- this is:
(14.138e9 bytes / dollar) * ( 22,100 bytes / dollar ) = 639728
a 640,000 factor cost reduction. In other words -- my DSL internet provider is moving bits 640,000 times less expensive than the equivalent bit-and-byte motion in 1987. And my compute bunker is a "poor" comparison to bit-and-byte movement inside "Walled Gardens" like Google. And you can bet that my internet provider and telephone company are moving the bits inside their wireline system far, far, far less expensive that at my "retail" full price.
HOW TO AMORTIZE? ASSUMING that a similar process is afoot -- and much greater price collapse has occurred inside "Walled Gardens" like Google -- it is not surprising that Google -- and others -- are not sure how much to charge for the transport of one megabyte -- or one gigabyte -- or even a few dozen terabytes. Google -- and the other walled gardens -- DO KNOW know the cost of the buildings / computers / power / air-conditioning -- and costs to install -- and operate. The only open question: How to estimate the amortization of the infrastructure on a per megabyte / gigabyte / terabyte / whatever basis. And then "price" this amortization "base cost" -- and "marked up" profit -- out to the customer like me.
SUMMARY? Just guessing from this simple compare calc -- Google and other "cloud providers" -- really do not know what their internal "cost of production" is -- or should be -- and are just guessing how to price their systems and services. Thus the surprise web site & hosting trip points -- and the need for the Google "cover charge" -- via a $10 gift card purchase for this specific web property.
And this collapsing cost-per-bit of movement has really just begun ... stay tuned.
VIDEO "Extra Treat" -- BASE COST Moving Bits -- One possible realization of a "Cloud Data Center" by Google -- 45,000 "servers" -- housed in 1000 "containers" -- with a 10 megawatt IT equipment load: Video Container Based Cloud System
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