Hot take: pricing changes vs the alternatives [v5]

Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have.

Been thinking about this for a while and curious what the community thinks. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks. The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping.

Looking for honest feedback, not validation.