Isn't there a sense in which automation, for the sake of creating something more predictable/repeatable/maintainable, is a good thing though?

predictable repeatable and maintainable are all great and important things. But micro services makes everything you do less predictable repeatable and maintainable. You must automate many more things with micro services to achieve the same level of predictable repeatable and maintainable as you have with a monolith.

There are many possible benefits of microservices, few of which outweigh the massive costs for many (dare I say most) startups.