I am not following the logic. If you’re a hobbyist, sure.

But the argument is if you’re using Vercel for production, you’re paying 5-10x what you’d pay for a VM, with 4gb.

So then what’s the rationale? You can’t be a hobbyist but also “it’s pay time” for production?

Perhaps the rationale is laziness. Maintaining VM probably takes some more effort and competence than deploying to Vercel. Some people are willing to pay to minimize effort and the need to learn anything.