Opinion: The move to consumption-based pricing benefits big spenders, not SMBs.

Everyone's pushing consumption-based pricing as the flexible, fair future. They call it "pay for what you use." Sounds great until you actually run the numbers.

For an SMB, unpredictable costs are a killer. A single bad query or a sudden spike can blow your budget. At least with per-seat, you know the ceiling. Now your analytics bill fluctuates like your AWS bill, but without the same level of granular control. The vendors win because they monetize your inefficiencies and mistakes. The big spenders win because they have the engineering teams to optimize every query and negotiate committed use discounts. The rest of us just get an invoice surprise.