Remember when ClickHouse was the fast, cost-efficient darling of analytics? Well, even it recently bumped up pricing by 30%. (Read more.)

Amazon RDS follows a similar pattern. While EC2 prices remain relatively stable, AWS has increased the margins on RDS over time, meaning managed database services get more expensive while raw compute doesn’t. (See analysis.)

And let’s not forget the industry’s collective PTSD from Oracle’s aggressive pricing tactics. NASA, for example, ended up overpaying Oracle by tens of millions due to confusing and predatory license structures. (Case study.)