There's a lot of talk about Google Cloud's recent waiver of data egress fees, but since fees are only waived when ending the relationship with Google, do you see this move as a true differentiator, or is it a publicity stunt? Or perhaps it will influence other cloud providers to reconsider their pricing as well?

From my perspective it does not matter.  The cloud egress fees are a rounding error in the overall bill when the cloud use is more than a small footprint.  As an example, cloud systems are backed up to a cloud repository within the same cloud, so no egress there.  Active directory and DNS reside in the same cloud IaaS cloud footprint, so all of that traffic is within the same cloud.  Yes, the are scenarios like multi region data replication that may add up to something, but those are mostly edge cases when considering say most (60%+) all of a given organization's systems sitting in an IaaS and somethiing like AWS PrivateLink is enabled.

I believe this will turn out to be both differentiator and publicity stunt. Choosing a cloud provider has often been a major decision due to how difficult and costly it is to get your data out of the service, if it isn't the right fit. On the other hand, it's also kind of like saying: "Don't let the door hit you on your way out" or "We'll help you pack."

In my opinion, waiving data egress fees could help eliminate reservations about trying Google Cloud without worrying about exit fees. However, don't think Google doesn't understand how a good publicity stunt works to their favor.