Jeff Bezos and Amazon

Recent article in business week discusses how Jeff Bezos wants to make Amazon into an internet platform company. It mentions a9 which was a case of google envy and a waste of shareholders money. The main point is it's web services like S3 service, which appears to be basically pay as you go web hosting, and mechanical turk, a crowdsourcing application. I think they are on the right track about the future of the net, but I just don't see them being the ones that pull it off.

I think the main problem is that they charge really small amounts for their services. Charging small amounts prevents people from using them. Conversely google lets people use their services for free and monetizes them through advertising. For instance they charge $.15/thousand requests for access to the alexa web services