I mean yes, I have managed BigQuery jobs that cost thousand of dollars per run but the actual call is not the thing that is expensive and I'm in control of what it costs me. It's not exactly the same scenario imo
I think the focus here isn't necessarily on compute cost. When companies hire data scientists or analysts, they're niche-skilled and expensive. If those people spend 50-60% of their time courting ad-hoc questions from various people in the org, the cost of that employee's time (and the money spent on them doing menial tasks that are a waste of their skillset) is the biggest factor.
