I hear what you’re saying, but horizontal scaling also gives you improved reliability too, which is good for individual instances.
I for one would happily horizontally scale an instance I was running (which I am not for now) on my K8s lab. Why? Because I can and because I like it!
If you all you care about is TB/$ you still cannot beat tape as long as you are using enough tapes.
It really depends how much you are talking about