The stock price, of course. Yesterday, in another thread about Amazon, someone described that the reason AWS works at all is the size of their firefighting team. It's the exact opposite of progress, why advance the state of the art when you have access to a large pool of cheap labour.
The size and growth of AWS' customer base and financial success is a very strong counterargument to your claims. Is it possible you are confusing your personal preferences for the goals of the AWS business? AWS may seek to advance the state of the art, but this is not the end goal, per se, but rather one factor that may or may not achieve the end goal. The end goal is more customers and greater revenue and profit.
> someone described that the reason AWS works at all is the size of their firefighting team
Customers don't care all that much why AWS "works". They care that it "works". And, again, it "working" is not their end goal. Rather, AWS "working" is yet another means to an end.
The reason why industrialization took off in Britain and not in India or China is unclear, but a regard for science, an undersupply of labour and internal stability all play a role.
You don't have any of that at Amazon, there is firefighting instead of research, they aren't running out people willing to work for them yet, and personnel turnover is stratospheric.
Yes, they do make money, but you can't buy advancement.
How does AWS advance the state of the art with undocumented services that frequently fail? I'm not a big fan of Azure, but at least they document their services.
