&gt; Why does this rationale not apply to its cloud business<p>Radically different margins. AWS is running on a 23.5% operating income margin. Retail doesn&#x27;t come close to that. Operating margins on their traditional North America business are 3.5%, and 1.3% internationally. Retail has to do almost seven times the sales of AWS to match the operating income.<p>The cash cow they have in AWS, is supporting the outsized valuation in their stock. Once investors realized what they had in AWS, by revealing how it was doing, the stock soared to a new level of high valuation. You can go back to December 2014 as see when this happened, the stock had been stagnant for a while, then doubled in one year following the reveal of how AWS was performing. AWS will pay for a lot of patience with shareholders.