I think it's the other $1975 that is breaking their startup.

Depending on your perspective, that might also be a small amount, but let's not misrepresent the situation.

The question is how much you can shave off the 1975 by going to another vendor.

The question should be how much you can save by not tying an anchor you don't control the weight of around your neck in the first place.

The anchor in the metaphor is using large tech conglomerate without being able to quickly pivot away from them at a moment's notice.

> The question should be how much you can save by not tying an anchor you don't control the weight of around your neck in the first place.

How much did it cost to engineer your product to not "tie an anchor"?

My guess is, you didn't "save" anything trying to build out several layers of abstraction to deal with a hypothetical risk of getting screwed by "large tech conglomerates".

Send me an email, subject "Does your product have technical debt?" in 5 years.

Spoiler: Answer will be "no".

Did you even read the comment? A change in firebase pricing increased the cost by almost an order of magnitude. I don't know how it affected the upper tiers but if you imagine a larger startup with much higher traffic, an unexpected price increase like that could break the company.