Yeah, I think thats the point though. Kubernetes enables the orchestration and observability of a PaaS in a much more flexible way so that you can get all of that while still matching the requirements of your business.

I think Heroku and DigitalOcean App Platform are still going to be popular for small setups (as will things like Amplify) but when you outgrow those (or realize you are paying too much for them) then Kubernetes is a reasonable option.