Where the bills grew
Steady, predictable workloads running continuously are the least favourable case for consumption pricing. Add egress charges on data-heavy applications and the arithmetic changes.
What they kept in cloud
Bursty and seasonal work, disaster recovery, and anything needing global reach. The pattern is hybrid rather than wholesale reversal.
The lesson for smaller teams
Match the pricing model to the load shape. A flat workload on a fixed server and a spiky one on elastic capacity is usually cheaper than either extreme.
