This makes sense. But, for many (at least bootstrapping) startups, $1800/mo for the database is not in the realm of the possible. Is not having to deal with (future) sharding headaches "worth" that much? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's possible.

So by pricing us out of the entry level, you will forgo having startups build their platforms on it and get hooked (while it's still at 1-node mysql scale).

When the sharding headache hits and they're scrambling to scale, will they switch to Spanner? Maybe. Probably. They'll want to, anyway. But there is a big market that will be missed.