Disclaimer: I work at Google Cloud Run.
I run docker compose locally for development. For prod, I just use a different docker compose file (with some values changed, for example the postgres database url etc.). I do this from a 5 USD per month droplet/vm. I can launch multiple services like this for my microservices platform. I can use a hosted database solution for another 15 USD per month, to get backups etc. Also I get a generous 1 TB bandwidth and predictable performance for my system as a whole.
In the past I have used appengine and been bitten by their update times (took more than 20 mins for a single code update, things could have improved now). Also I need to write deployment artifacts for each service.
Now is there any benefit that cloud run (or any paas) could offer compared to this ? Would it be not easier to just stay with docker-compose and defer upgrading to kubernetes until you turn profitable or become unmanageable with a single VM ?
Cloud Run implements the Knative API, so you can actually take it away and run it on any Kubernetes cluster anywhere on a cloud or in your datacenter.
Source: at mid-sized company who has Istio in the stack.
What ends up happening is that your application consumes services (storage, analytics, etc.). You start using those services from the cloud provider, which makes sense as long as it is the right thing for your business (aligns w/ your cloud-native blueprint).
Kubernetes, by itself, is cloud-provider agnostic.
Overall though it is an amazing service and it is really fast and easy to use.
There is AWS Fargate for Kubernetes, AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service, DigitalOcean Kubernetes, Google Kubernetes Engine etc.
All of which are on the cloud and all of which don't require you to configure host OS etc. Some offer full control over node configuration e.g. EKS whilst others manage that for you e.g. Fargate.
I don't know which part you're not getting, but it appears that this person's intention is not to learn Kubernetes or deal with nodes in the first place.