I thought you could also only sell exclusive use e.g only one vm (or two vms to same customer)
reply> A well-known limitation is that Apple only allows two macOS VMs per physical Mac. It can be a Mac Pro with 24 cores and 192 GB memory, yet it is limited to running only two guest VMs. This limitation leaks into our product offering: we can only slice Mac resources in two halves. So we run instances with 6 or 12 cores on 14-core Mac Minis and 8/16-core instances on 18-core MacBooks (we reserve a couple cores for management overhead).
replyI don't know about selling, but Apple permits up to 2 virtualized Macs to run on a Mac. If they are circumventing this limit that would be an issue, but it doesn't sound like they are.
replyAh okay - and the 24 hour minimum rental time doesn't apply to VMs? Im just curious how they are getting around the limits that Mac Stadium and AWS have.
replyThey aren't getting around any limitations. How you decide to bill for meeting the limitations is a business decision, and you can do it via either higher average rates and allow more granular rentals to be financially covered that way or by requiring a 24 hour minimum.
replyI.e. just because Apple requires you to do things in 24 hour increments does not mean your billing has to expose it in exactly the same way.
I dont think thats an correct interpretation of the EULA, they are just choosing to ignore it - https://wiki.licenseware.io/catalog/rules/apple-macos-lease-...
replyIf a business reserves a Mac for 24 hours (and allows no other users for that window), it complies with the EULA, no?
replyThat doesn't mean the business has to charge the user for 24 hours. You could charge for 6 hours and then just let the Mac sit idle and unused the remaining 18.
You're eatting the cost of that unused time, but if its a differentiator that leads to more business than it might still be worth it.
EDIT: To be clear, imagine a case where the user has 24 hour sole access to the Mac. They could use up 24 hours if they wanted. But usage is tracked per hour, and they're only billed after the fact based on how much time they actually were running something during that 24 hour window.
To be fair, it was against Microsoft's EULA to sell the OEM version of Windows to individuals who built a computer from parts.
replyNobody cared.