Amazon S3: No More Flat-rate Pricing

What does it mean when a vendor adopts flat-rate pricing, but later moves away from it? Does this mean the vendor misjudged the market initially or wised up and found new ways to exploit their customers? The truth is both more and less complicated than any of these explanations. Amazon is in the news because they announced that as of June 1, they are introducing tiered pricing for parts of their S3 web services. Amazon's announcement states that many customers will pay less and some will pay (a lot) more. To understand what is going on, it helps to understand a little about pricing theory and practice.

Digital Slices: Atomizing the Business of Segmentation

Segmentation has always been a key part of marketing. Sorting customers into appropriate segments allows business and marketing types to filter ideas, glean intelligence, set prices, and decide what to offer and what to toss. Segmentation also allows successful companies to produce just the right thing to address the needs of different slices of the market.