{"id":1702,"slug":"s3-price-drop-magnitude-85-percent","title":"S3 storage cost fell ~85% from launch — ~7× more data for the same dollar; independently corroborated","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["web-infrastructure","cloud-infrastructure-economics"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** S3 storage fell **~85%** from $0.15/GB (2006) to ~$0.02/GB (2025) — roughly **7× more data for the same dollar**. AWS states ~85%; independent timeline (hidekazu-konishi.com) corroborates \"over 84%\" across tiers, with major cuts in 2009, 2014, and December 2016.\n\n**Source:** AWS S3 pricing history + hidekazu-konishi.com independent timeline (multi-source).\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**Caveat:** AWS's own \"we've cut prices N times\" framing is vendor self-congratulation and is quarantined — only the dated launch price + current published price are primary. See [[aws-100-price-cuts-vendor-framing-quarantined]].\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The magnitude is the headline number for any cost-floor article. Honest editorial framing pairs it with the structural shift ([[capex-to-opex-structural-shift-synthesis]]) so the reader doesn't walk away thinking \"85% off retail\" was the whole story.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"s3-launch-march-2006-15-cents-per-gb","title":"Amazon S3 launched March 14, 2006 at $0.15/GB — object storage as a metered utility","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"s3-current-price-2-3-cents-per-gb-2025","title":"S3 Standard ~$0.023/GB in 2025/2026 (first 50TB), tiering to $0.021/GB","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"aws-100-price-cuts-vendor-framing-quarantined","title":"AWS \"we've cut prices 100+ times since 2006\" framing — quarantined as vendor self-congratulation","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-falling-cost-floor-real-web-functionality-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the falling cost floor of \"real\" web functionality for SMBs (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"magnitude-summary-storage-compute-bandwidth-structural","title":"Magnitude summary: storage ~85% / 7×; compute ~20×; bandwidth ~240×; plus the capex→opex structural shift","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.439Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.439Z"}