Right. So why wouldn't I just pay the upfront fee and colo it myself without having to pay Amazon the upfront fee and the recurring hourly charge? Sure, you could argue I would have to pay to colo it somewhere else, but if I'm an org that requires an HSM appliance I more than likely already have my own colo space somewhere. Compliance should also be much easier when I say, "The box is right here, these are the employees with physical access" vs "The box is at Amazon, I have no idea where, and I don't know who can touch it".
The hourly charge is $1.88/hour. That's $1398.72/month. To have the box in Amazon's datacenter. You can colo the box somewhere for under $200/month. That margin is ridiculous.
