The price seems on par. Are there hidden costs on aws?
It's actually incredibly complicated and often very difficult (if not impossible) to predict. We have a dedicated part of our organisation which exists solely to figure out costs ahead of time for project.
I'm not sure if it's intentionally obfuscated, I would suspect not, because "pay for what you use" can be broken down into many areas.
It absolutely is a strategic choice and not an accident.
It's actually incredibly complicated and often very
difficult (if not impossible) to predict.
Lightsail and digital ocean give you 1TB egress minimum included in billing. Now try to input that number into EC2 instance. If I am not wrong, that turns out to be 130$ approx