I am pretty sure that Kubernetes is just a buzzword they included to get clicks. You can definitely spend money in the cloud using Kubernetes or not using Kubernetes, and in the Kubernetes case, disabling node autoscaling doesn't eliminate the ability to spend money by submitting an API object. The article mentions PVs (which will be auto-provisioned whenever you request one; this feature is so core to Kubernetes that it works without effort even if you aren't using the cloud provider's managed Kubernetes offering) and cloud storage (write a byte, now you're spending money to store that byte), and it's right -- those things cost money and make spend unpredictable. But, it really has nothing to do with Kubernetes. They may have well as said "using Intel CPUs makes cloud spend unpredictable", because Intel CPUs are capable of executing instructions that call APIs to spend money in the cloud. Technically true, but kind of grasping at straws.