Hacker News with Generative AI: Costs

Single day Firebase bill for $100k (serverlesshorrors.com)
I had cloudflare in front of my stuff. Hacker found an uncached object and hit it 100M+ times. I stopped that and then they found my origin bucket and hit that directly.

Cloud Computing, Security, Firebase, Costs

23 points by todsacerdoti 5 days ago | 14 comments

The future of solar doesn't track the sun (wordpress.com)
PV modules are cheap enough today that the simple fixed East-West arrays are cheaper and faster to install than the industry’s darling, the single-axis tracked array.

Solar Energy, Renewable Energy, Technology, Costs

155 points by surprisetalk 8 days ago | 142 comments

Break It Down: A man tries to calculate what love costs (1983) [audio] (thisamericanlife.org)
Support the show to get ad-free listening, bonus content, and our new Greatest Hits Archive.

Audio, Relationships, Costs, 1980s

17 points by NaOH 9 days ago | 8 comments

A single line of code cost $8000 (pietrasiak.com)

Programming, Costs, Software Development

303 points by lordfuckleroy 10 days ago | 411 comments

Chinese factories build firetrucks for $400k in 6wk. US it's $2M in 4 years [video] (youtube.com)

Manufacturing, China, USA, Firetrucks, Costs

7 points by xbmcuser 20 days ago | 2 comments

How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia? (twitter.com)
How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

Manufacturing, Costs, Nike, Asia, Footwear

697 points by taubek 30 days ago | 987 comments

Wikipedia, says its bandwidth costs have gone up 50% since Jan 2024 (bsky.app)

Wikipedia, Costs, Bandwidth, Online Services

49 points by vinnyglennon 37 days ago | 45 comments

It's five grand a day to miss our S3 exit (world.hey.com)
We're spending just shy of $1.5 million/year on AWS S3 at the moment to host files for Basecamp, HEY, and everything else.

Cloud Computing, Costs, Business, Software, SaaS

12 points by taubek 43 days ago | 1 comments

It's five grand a day to miss our S3 exit (world.hey.com)
We're spending just shy of $1.5 million/year on AWS S3 at the moment to host files for Basecamp, HEY, and everything else.

Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business, Costs

187 points by ksec 43 days ago | 176 comments

Big Tech is striking secret deals to make you foot its electricity bill (archive.org)
Tech companies racing to secure power for their data centers have struck dozens of secretive electricity deals with utilities that could cost average Americans a "staggering" amount, Harvard research found.

Big Tech, Energy, Utilities, Data Centers, Costs

38 points by zekrioca 47 days ago | 3 comments

The True Costs of Being on YouTube (carlalallimusic.substack.com)
I started my YouTube channel in earnest in October, 2021, shortly before That Sounds So Good, my second cookbook, came out. A little over three years later, on January 29, 2025, I uploaded the 177th episode of Carla’s Cooking Show. That video, for a cheddar burger named after my mom, is my last for now, and possibly forever.

YouTube, Content Creation, Social Media, Costs, Personal Experience

84 points by exolymph 83 days ago | 69 comments

Servers can last a long time (world.hey.com)
We bought sixty-one servers for the launch of Basecamp 3 back in 2015. Dell R430s and R630s, packing thousands of cores and terabytes of RAM. Enough to fill all the app, job, cache, and database duties we needed. The entire outlay for this fleet was about half a million dollars, and it's only now, almost a decade later, that we're finally retiring the bulk of them for a full hardware refresh. What a bargain!

Servers, Hardware, Technology, Costs, Longevity

6 points by ksec 89 days ago | 0 comments

Datadog Dollars: Why Your Monitoring Bill Is Breaking the Bank (oneuptime.com)
Have you ever opened your monitoring bill and felt your heart skip a beat? You're not alone. In the world of digital infrastructure, many companies are experiencing sticker shock when they see their Datadog invoices. Let's unpack why your monitoring bill might be breaking the bank and explore how you can rein it back in.

Monitoring, Costs, Datadog, Cloud Infrastructure, SaaS

4 points by ndhandala 95 days ago | 1 comments

AI and two hundred dollar tasks (ninlabs.com)
In 2013, inspired by GitHub’s octocat, I too wanted a mascot. It wasn’t something I exactly needed, but I thought would be interesting to have. I had come across a freelance designer, and decided to splurge and commission a design. The designer did good work, and I was happy with the results. Overall, it cost $200.

Artificial Intelligence, Design, Freelance, Costs

83 points by azhenley 101 days ago | 84 comments

Pixelfed: The operational costs now exceed $4k USD vs. $1,465 from Patreon (mastodon.social)

Social Media, Open Source, Costs

32 points by doener 104 days ago | 7 comments

California's insurance is in crisis. The solution will cost homeowners a ton (cnn.com)

California, Insurance, Homeowners, Costs

18 points by this_weekend 120 days ago | 20 comments

Video Games Can't Afford to Look This Good (nytimes.com)
One way to understand the video game industry’s current crisis is by looking closely at Spider-Man’s spandex.

Video Games, Industry, Graphics, Costs

17 points by ingve 134 days ago | 12 comments

Ask HN: How do you cover healthcare as a founder? (US Only) (ycombinator.com)
Got a family of 3 while I work on my startup. Somehow we are surviving for Month over Month but healthcare costs are through the roof.

Startup Founders, Healthcare, US, Costs

20 points by deputychina 145 days ago | 11 comments

Cloudy with a chance of GPU bills: AI's energy appetite has CIOs sweating (theregister.com)
Organizations are being forced to rethink where they host workloads in response to ballooning AI demands combined with rising energy bills, and shoving them into the public cloud may not be the answer.

Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Energy, Costs, Data Centers

5 points by rntn 161 days ago | 0 comments

I Followed the Official AWS Amplify Guide and Was Charged $1,100 (elliott-king.github.io)
A few months ago, I was adapting an official guide for an AWS service. Specifically, integrating OpenSearch with Amplify. I worked through the guide, and modified and debugged it for my own purposes. A few weeks later, I received an AWS bill for over $1200, and almost had a heart attack. I hadn’t selected the most expensive OS instance type. I hadn’t even used it much at all.

AWS, Cloud Computing, Costs, Software Development, Open Source

461 points by thunderbong 176 days ago | 276 comments

WebSockets cost us $1M on our AWS bill (recall.ai)
IPC is something that is rarely top-of-mind when it comes to optimising cloud costs. But it turns out that if you IPC 1TB of video per second on AWS it can result in enormous bills when done inefficiently.

Cloud Computing, AWS, Costs, Optimization

362 points by tosh 184 days ago | 231 comments

Getting a Japanese CERO age rating for your game costs extra per platform (automaton-media.com)
Getting a game age rated in Japan can be an expensive experience – especially in the case of multiplatform and physical releases.

Video Games, Japan, Business, Costs

13 points by nafnlj 205 days ago | 13 comments

How much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”? (sustainabilitybynumbers.com)
Elon Musk has said several times recently that desalinisation is “absurdly cheap”.1

Energy, Desalination, Sustainability, Costs

28 points by philipkglass 228 days ago | 48 comments

Traveling with a Laptop and an iPad to Mexico? Prepare to Pay Hundreds (forbes.com)

Traveling, Mexico, Technology, Costs

41 points by josephcsible 250 days ago | 9 comments

The 1-HR nurse visits that cost $15B to Medicare (wsj.com)

Healthcare, Medicare, Costs

26 points by IG_Semmelweiss 277 days ago | 69 comments

Intel to shed at least 15% of staff to drive down costs (theregister.com)